


#SamLives

by Pixiemage



Category: Youtube RPF, jacksepticeye, markiplier - Fandom
Genre: A rather interesting one, And the audience plays a role, Anti is a bitch, Basically, Belief, Friendship, Gen, Possession, SamLives, Secrets, Violence, Who likes hurting Jack, Will add tags and characters as the need arises, jacksepticeye - Freeform, we'll see how this goes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-06-14 20:58:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 50,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15397308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pixiemage/pseuds/Pixiemage
Summary: It had started with an honest mistake. After years of being so careful, Jack had slipped up in his video editing...and one of his best-kept secrets became public knowledge. (Or, at least, public myth and theory.)The big secret? Sam the septic eye was a lot more real than most people knew.Along with dealing with the aftermath of the #SamLives slip-up, Jack is thrown into the realm of the unknown and impossible when other nonexistent beings start making appearances in his life...and with the help of a close friend and fellow YouTuber, he finds his way through the chaos that he unintentionally created for himself. He's about to figure out the hard way just how powerful the concept of "belief" can really be.





	1. #SamLives

It had been an honest mistake. After years of being so careful, Jack had slipped up in his video editing.

Now, normally Robin did his editing, sure. Robin was in on the secret and knew to edit the videos accordingly…but this time it had been a quick little vlog, just a quick “Hello” and an update on his plans for future games. So he’d offered to edit it himself to save Robin the hassle. And he’d screwed it all up.

He didn’t notice, didn’t catch it before going to bed…and by the next morning it was viral. It was everywhere. Screenshots all over tumblr, re-uploads of the ten second clip all over YouTube. People in the comments of the video posting the timestamp and freaking out in all caps. It wasn’t until he’d woken up and checked Twitter that he even saw the trending hashtag.

** #SamLives **

He nearly spit out his coffee, eyes bugging out of his skull as he scrambled to his computer to see for himself. He pulled up his own video, scrubbed over to about halfway through, and stared at his own blunder.

Jack, the Jack in the video, was announcing his plans to try out a new fangame that he’d had on his list for a while. It was about halfway through his explanation of how he’d found it that a little green eyeball bounced up onto his shoulder.

_“Sam! Hey, buddy. I’m makin’ a video. Didja wanna help?”_  
_A nod from Sam._  
 _“Heh, sure thing. Here, why don’tcha sit up here by the monitor…”_  
 _He careful picked up Sam, moving him just out of sight of the camera._  
 _“…and you can tell me if I forget anything. Got it? Alright…”_

And he continued right on with what he’d been saying before, as though nothing had happened.

_Stupid, stupid, stupid, stUPID!  
_

Jack slammed his head on his desk, groaning. Dammit…and he’d kept Sam a secret for so long. Sam was an oddity, a unique little creature that even he didn’t understand. Sam had become his best buddy and the mascot of his channel (though the public reason behind it was slightly different than fact) and Jack had done his best to make sure nobody knew Sam was real. He was scared of what might happen, scared of what people might do if they did find out. He hoped, he  _prayed_  that everyone would chalk it up to really, really good animation. Please.

Jack jumped as his phone went off, the notification for a Skype call lighting up his screen. It was Robin. Shit. And now, thinking back, he realized that the numerous text notifications he’d woken up to from his fellow YouTubers - far more than usual, which he’d noticed but brushed off - had to all be about the same thing. With a feeling of dread, Jack reluctantly picked up the call.

“Hey Robin…y-yeah…yeah, I saw…”


	2. A Call From A Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack receives a call (one among many he's been ignoring from people) from a concerned friend. This time, he actually picks up the phone.

It had been three days since  **#SamLives**  had begun its run through the internet, and the influx of messages and asks and tweets Jack had received because of it had yet to cease. He was at his computer attempting to record another game for his upcoming videos…but he just wasn’t feeling it. Sam was asleep near the computer monitor in a little nest Jack had made for him inside his old hat - the hat everybody was familiar with. His eyes kept falling on the little eyeball, his thoughts falling to worry about the fact that people knew of his existence now. And he knew full well that people would notice his change in demeanor if he uploaded a recording like this, the same way they managed to catch every single Anti hint he had ever left in a video. They wouldn’t miss it. They’d know something was wrong.

So when a call came through on his phone, Jack was more than grateful for the interruption. He paused the recording and picked up his mobile, expecting Robin again…but this time it was Markiplier. Mark was one of the people who had been calling him non-stop since the clip of Sam had leaked, and he was also one of the ones Jack had yet to speak to. The Irishman sank in his chair, chewing his lip, letting the ringtone carry on for a few more seconds. He took a breath. He ran a hand through his hair.

Then he picked up.

“Hey Mark–”

 _“Jack! Dude! I’ve been calling you for days!”_ Mark cut him off loudly, the frustration and relief at having waited so long but finally getting a response both coming through in his words.

“Yeah, I noticed,” Jack chuckled, spinning in his chair a little. “Sorry. Been a little busy. What’s up?”

 _“The video,”_ Mark said. _“Sam. That’s what’s up.”_

Jack sighed. He should have known that would be the first thing on Mark’s mind.

“…what about it? Tryin’ to figure out how Robin an’ I managed to get the animation quality so high?”

He attempted to carry on the lie that both he and Robin had agreed to use as their cover story.

_“Animation…? No, dude. Cut the crap. I know that wasn’t an animation.”_

Jack’s chair stilled. His half-smile dropped and he swallowed thickly.

“O’ course it was…what else would it be? A puppet?” He tried to play it of as a joke, but Mark, apparently, wasn’t having any of it.

_“Is Sam okay?”_

The question was one Jack hadn’t been expecting and he sat up, looking down at Sam, who still sat snoozing in the little nest. His grip on the phone tightened.

“…S-Sam? Heh, you know he’s not… _actually real, right?”_

_“Jack.”_

Jack swallowed. Clearly Mark wasn’t about to let this go, though for the life of him he couldn’t understand why. He didn’t speak for a long moment, and a static-laced sigh came through on the other end of the call.

_“…alright, fine. Are **you**  alright? You sound stressed.”_

“I’m fine.” Jack said it a little too quickly. “Totally fine. Behind on recording, that’s all. Didn’t…eh…expect so much feedback from that video. Got a bit distracted reading fan posts on Tumblr.”

That, at the very least, was true. He’d been searching through post after post, seeing how many people actually believed Sam was real, how many were praising the “animation”, how many were catching on and separating the fact from the fiction. Mark chuckled on the other end of the call.

_“Well when you pull a stunt like that, what do you expect? I know you got the same response the first time Anti appeared.”_

“This time it wasn’t a stunt though! This was an accid–” He cut himself off. Accident. It had been an accident. But that wasn’t the story he was supposed to be giving people. He sank further in his chair with a groan. “…it was s’pposed to be somethin’ fun and small for people to enjoy.” He mumbled the script he’d been teaching himself. Mark hummed.

 _“Mhm. Sure.”_ There was a touch of disbelief in his words, and Jack knew full well that he wasn’t convincing the other YouTuber one bit.

“You don’t believe me.” It wasn’t a question. “D’you know how stupid that sounds? I mean, c’mon, sentient eyeballs don’t exist. Why’re you so set on thinkin’ Sam’s real?”

For once his response gained nothing but an odd silence from the other end of the line. Jack sat up a little, frowning.

“Mark?”

_“It’s nothing. Listen, I’ve gotta…go to bed. It’s almost 2am here. I’ll talk to you later.”_

And Mark hung up before Jack could say anything else. Blinking, Jack pulled back the phone to stare at it in baffled confusion. What the hell…?

‘ _Jack?’_

Sam’s voice echoed in his head and Jack looked up, seeing his little friend starting to wake up, blinking sleepily. He smiled.

“Hey. Sorry buddy. Was I thinking too loud? I’ll try an’ quiet down…”


	3. Belief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Though he tries his best to hide it, Jack is stressed. His friends are beginning to notice. A collab, a flashback, and a call from a friend.

“Jack, you need sleep.”

 

Day Nine of the  **#SamLives**  debacle.

Jack would be lying if he said he’d been sleeping fine, that he hadn’t been worried. The stress of the situation was beginning to take its toll, and it hadn’t been made any better by the GameTheory video that had come out the day before. Matt had good intentions, Jack knew, but…it hadn’t exactly worked the way he assumed the other YouTuber had been hoping.

 

## “Game Theory: Does #SamLive? THE SCIENTIFIC PROOF!”

 

MatPat was one of the few YouTubers who had, accidentally, learned of Sam’s existence. It was at that Rachel Ray event, the one where he and Matt had been on the same Taco-Making Team™. Sam hadn’t been feeling well so Jack had brought him along for the day, keeping the little eyeball in his hoodie and out of sight, close to him in case Sam needed him. But in the midst of the chaos of the competition, Jack had been jostled by Matt, had tripped and landed on his arse. Matt had immediately apologized and laughed it off…but when he’d reached down to help Jack stand up, Sam had peaked out from where he’d been hiding in Jack’s hood. Matt had frozen, a stunned look on his face, and in an instant Jack knew that he had  _seen_. That he  _knew._  For a moment the pair had been frozen in a stare-off, neither sure what to do. Then Jack had shaken his head quickly and put a finger to his lips. No. Please. Quiet. Don’t say anything…

…and Matt had nodded. He’d helped Jack to his feet and not commented on it at all. Tom (their third teammate) had missed the entire exchange, cracking some joke about “Laying down on the job”. Later, in a bathroom down a back hallway, Jack had explained everything to Matt…and Matt had sworn he wouldn’t tell a soul.

So when #SamLived had taken the YouTube scene by storm faster than Scott Cawthon turned out FNaF games, and when Jack saw that GameTheory had made a video about it….he knew what Matt was trying to do. The video wasn’t proving that Sam was real. The video was to try and counter-prove the theories saying he  _was_  and to point out all the reasons why Sam couldn’t possibly exist. Which would have been fine, except that it meant all of the fans over on the GameTheory channel who  _hadn’t_  heard about the #SamLives chaos would now be in the know.

 

“…ack? Jack!”

“Hm…?” Jack dragged himself from his thoughts and blinked, shaking himself mentally. “Sorry Peej, I missed that.”

PJ was watching him from the office chair next to his with a frown on his face. He nudged the Irishman’s leg with his foot.

“Man, you were totally out of it for a bit there. I was just saying you should get some sleep.”

“I’m tryin’, PJ, I swear I am,” Jack smiled weakly. “I’ve just been stressed. I’ll be fine in a few days.”

“Are you still up for recording a game today? We can wait until next week if you’re not feeling up to it.”

“Nah, I’ll be fine,” Jack pulled on a brighter smile. Good ol’ PJ. He was a decent guy and an even better friend. But Jack shook his head, running a hand through his hair to fix it. “Don’t worry about me. A video or two isn’t gonna be the death of me! I’ll take a nap when we’re done with this one, alright?”

PJ held up both hands in surrender, returning the Irishman’s infectious grin.

“Whatever you say! But you had better be serious about that nap. You look like you need it.”

Jack scoffed and laughed, his next words dripping with sarcasm.

“Oh, thaaaanks, thanks for the compliment. I reeaaally needed that self-esteem boost. You’re too kind.”

“No problem!” PJ grinned cheekily back at him.

The two fell into laughter, and once they had started into the Nintendo Switch game they’d planned on recording, most of Jack’s worries fell away for the time being.

 

 

That’s not to say they didn’t come back. Jack kept his promise to PJ. He took a nap halfway through the day, crashing onto his couch with all the grace of a baby giraffe.PJ \- knowing he needed the rest - only asked Jack if he could raid the pantry (“Sure, just don’t touch the cookies or you’re dead to me.”) before leaving him to his devices. But Jack’s sleep was a restless one, leaving him feeling only a fraction better when he woke up later to his phone ringing on the coffee table beside him.

With his face still buried in the stiff couch pillows, Jack reached out blindly, his hand skittering across the table’s surface like a drunk spider, landing on the remote, a game controller, and yesterday’s mail before finally coming into contact with his phone. He answered it without looking, face still half-mushed in the pillow.

“Mph?”

“ _…Jack?”_

“Wassup?”

“ _Did I wake you up?”_

The humorous tone on the other end of the phone was vaguely familiar, and it took him a moment to make the connection in his barely-woken-up state.

“…you’ve reached Jacksepticeye’s mouth. His brain isn’t here right now, but if ye call back again in a few minutes it might’ve come back around by then. Either that, or his mouth will have left too.”

“ _The infamous screaming Irishman of YouTube, missing his mouth? The horror!”_

“Oh, shuddup Mark,” Jack chuckled. He dragged himself into a semi-upright position, slouching on the couch. “What’s up?”

“ _What are you doing asleep at six in the evening?”_

“I took a nap.” Jack yawned and scratched at the scruff along his jaw. “Is there a reason fer this call or didja just miss hearin’ my voice?”

“ _Can ‘both’ be an answer?”_ Jack could hear Mark’s grin from the other end of the line.

“Heh, I s’ppose,” he chuckled a little. “But really, what’s up?”

“ _I…eh. Saw the video that GameTheory posted. He really jumped on the bandwagon quickly, didn’t he?”_

“Is this about Sam again?” Jack didn’t mean for it to come out as annoyed as it did, honestly. He really didn’t. But it sounded that way anyway and he winced at his own words. PJ stuck his head out from the doorway to the kitchen, an eyebrow raised in question, a bag of crisps in hand. Jack waved him off with a smile.

“ _I…_ ” Mark faltered. Seemed like he’d hit the nail right on the head. “ _…well, yeah, but I’ve got a reason for bringing it up, I swear._ ” The American was quick to defend himself, and Jack couldn’t help but wonder if Mark thought he’d hang up because of the subject matter. He sighed and sat up a little straighter.

“Oh yeah?” Jack asked, trying to sound more friendly. “And what reason might that be?”

“ _Well see…the thing is…_ ” Mark trailed off. Jack could hear sounds in the background, movement. Like Mark was moving around the house. Was he pacing? “ _…I mean…w-well, it’s kinda…weird. I mean not bad weird, or freaky weird - okay it might be a little freaky to some people but–_ ”

“If this is about your third nipple I already know,” Jack snickered, trying to lessen the tension with a joke. (PJ clearly thought it was funny if his stifled laughter from the other room was anything to go by.) But it didn’t seem to help because Mark let out a frustrated groan on the other end of the line.

“ _No! No, it’s…_ ” More silence. “ _Okay, it’s kind of about Sam, but kinda not._ ”

“Okay…?” Jack stood up from the couch, shuffling to the kitchen as Mark struggled to find the words he wanted to say. Coffee. He needed coffee for this.

“ _OH!”_ Mark shouted suddenly, as if he’d had an epiphany. “ _OH! Oh oh oh! Okay! So! In Bendy and the Ink Machine, Joey Drew has that…that one tape recording, where he’s talking about belief. About how it can do amazing, impossible things, and how you could even cheat death or something–_ ”

“Mark, what in th’ blue blazes does this have ta do with my imaginary friend?”

“ _I’m getting there, I promise._ ”

Jack rolled his eyes and started the coffee machine, leaning back against the counter with one hand tucked in his pocket. PJ was reclining in a kitchen chair, playing a game on his phone with his feet kicked up on the table, and he was still giving Jack puzzled looks that made his curiosity about the phone call clear. Jack covered the mouthpiece and lowered his voice.

"It's Mark," he murmured. "Markiplier. Keeps asking about the #SamLives thing."

"Oh, yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask...how did you guys do that?" PJ asked. “New animation program? Robin did a fantastic job.”

PJ’s grip on his phone had gone slack while he was talking, but a beeping sound effect from the game immediately drew his attention and he quickly focused on playing it while he waited for a response. Jack didn't respond right away...what would his lie be this time?...but before he could even figure out an answer, his phone buzzed against his ear, a notification pinging in the background. So he pulled the mobile away from his face and put the call on speaker, minimizing the app so he could check whatever had just gone off. All he offered PJ was a half-shrug as a response to his question.

“ _Belief. I’m talking about belief,_ ” Mark continued. Jack opened Twitter, still listening. “ _I never really thought about it before I played Bendy, but afterwards…it just made sense! And then you posted that video with Sam and I remembered that quote from the game…_ ”

Jack swiped over to his messages, and saw one from somebody he was fairly certain he wasn’t friends with. Weird…he tapped it. It took a long time for the message to load, and once it did, the app closed itself out. Jack scrunched up his nose. Well then. It was gonna be one of  _those_  days then, huh? The rustle of static came over the speaker for a moment and Jack frowned, struggling to understand Mark’s words.

“ _If y…ave…nough of it you ca…_ ”

“Mark? Mark, you’re cuttin’ out, man–”

Jack tugged his other hand free from his pocket and tapped the screen - and he gasped sharply when a static shock jolted through his finger. He shook his hand roughly through the air and winced, cursing under his breath. What the hell…? Then whatever weak connection he’d had with Mark’s call was gone, the call dropping and ending abruptly. Jack…blinked. And stared at his phone.

"You alright?" PJ looked up from his game again to frown at the irishman, who tugged on a quick smile. He shrugged and tucked his phone in his pocket. Ah, well...Mark must’ve had bad reception.

"I'm fine, Peej," he crossed the kitchen to tap PJ’s phone screen, making him lose whatever game he was playing and earning a cry of protest in return. "Just a little static shock. Surprised me more 'n anything. But hey, I’m good! I’m golden! I'm a big, strong boy! I can handle anything!"

Jack's tone turned humorous and his antics drew a snort and rolled eyes from PJ.

"Sure you can," he drawled, swatting at Jack’s arm to stop him interfering with his game again, and making the gamer scamper away with a victorious grin. "A big, strong boy who's scared of heights."

"Hey! That is a completely valid fear to have, you hypocrite!" Jack protested as he continued making his coffee. He pretended to look highly affronted by the accusation. "I mean it’s not really the height that scares me, it’s the fuckin’ death waiting at the bottom of the fall. Can ye blame me?"

“Maybe you’re just scared of being tall because you’ve been so short your whole life–”

PJ barely managed to dart out of the kitchen in time to miss the roll of paper towel Jack chucked at his head.

Jack finished his coffee and moved on with his day, his focus turning to recording the second video with PJ…though somehow Mark’s little ramblings about “belief” lingered with him, hovering in the back of his mind.

What had he meant by that…?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter ended up being longer than the previous two…oops lol. Got a little carried away. But frankly, I think I like longer chapters! The original Chapter One was a one-shot I wrote for Tumblr, but when it gained a lot of interest and people asked for more, I ended up continuing it. I've already finished eight chapters of #SamLives, but I'll be posting them slowly so I have time to finish the next chapter that's in the works.
> 
> I don’t have a real, concrete plan for this, I never did, but with each new chapter I gained a few ideas about where it might go. This could get interesting… :3c


	4. Paranoia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Robin asks Jack about some oddities in his recent video recordings, Jack starts to get a little paranoid...and he can't help but wonder if maybe Mark had been on to something with his ramblings about "belief" when he'd called last time.

It was on Day 11 that Jack got a message from Robin that sent a chill down his spine. He’d been sitting on the couch at the time, watching some Rick and Morty with Sam curled up asleep in his lap. The little eyeball was as comfortable as could be with Jack gently petting his “head”…and that’s when his phone went off.

> **Robin:**   _Hey Jack…did you have plans for the Egos that I didn’t know about? Lmao_

Jack blinked, staring at the screen. He frowned and typed a message back.

> **Jack** :  _No…? Only what we’ve talked about, but I thought that wasn’t until next month. Why?_  
>  **Robin** :  _Nice job on the editing practice then. Looks like your Anti skills are improving._

And now Jack was very, very confused.

> **Jack** :  _What are you talking about?_  
>  **Robin** :  _That last recording you sent me, for Subnautica. It looked great!_

Jack sat up straighter, making Sam stir from his sleep, but he barely noticed.

> **Jack** :  _Robin, I didn’t edit that recording at all. I haven’t recorded anything for Anti in ages._  
>  **Robin:** _What are you talking about it? I’m watching it right now._  
>  **Jack:** _Send it to me?_

A few minutes later, Jack was at his computer with Sam on his shoulder, watching the short clip that Robin had sent him, playing it on a loop. That…wasn’t possible. No. What the hell…?

“ _…heeeey Reefies!”_  On-screen Jack was saying. “ _Aww, I love you guys. Be back soon! Alright, heading to the Deep Down Dark Deep Down. Gotta visit my base, visit my lockers, ‘cause I’m a stupid who forgot all the valuable stuff and left it in a place that takes FUCKIN’ FOREVER TO GET TO! Fuuuuck it so muuuuuch! Heheh…”_  Video-Jack chuckled at his own reference to Simulacra, and it was at that moment that a shadow appeared, glitching, behind him on screen. Just over his shoulder, against the wall. A familiar face grinned from the shadows, and a high-pitched, distorted laugh played in the recording. The video itself glitched, Jack included. Then Video-Jack shivered, glancing over his shoulder, and the figure - Anti - was gone. It was so quick that he wouldn’t have caught it in his brief skim-through of the recorded footage before he sent it to Robin. And it looked just like all those hints he had dropped in his videos during October before Anti had first shown up in “Say Goodbye”.

Except…except Jack hadn’t recorded that. Jack hadn’t done that. Jack hadn’t…made that face, laughed that laugh. He hadn’t  _done that_ …and suddenly he felt very, very scared. Then rationality kicked in and he giggled hysterically, running a hand through his hair.

He was being stupid. He was being dramatic. Obviously Robin had edited this, and was making a joke of it. That bit with Anti…it had to be part of the unused footage from a previous project. It had to be. He shook his phone free from his hoodie pocket and tapped out a shaky text.

> **Jack** :  _Haha, very funny. You got me! I was actually scared there for a second!_  
>  **Jack:** _You’re such a troll lol_

But Robin’s next message didn’t make him feel any better.

> **Robin:**   _Man I’m not trolling you. I thought you edited that?_

Jack could barely keep his hands from shaking as he tried to respond. He swallowed thickly, a dull fear washing over him.

> **Jack:** _No, I didn’t. That…I never did that. Unless I’ve learned to edit in my sleep I have no idea how that got into the video_

Unless…

_“Belief. I’m talking about belief….and how it can do amazing, impossible things…”_

The words Mark had spoken to him a few days prior were bouncing around in his head again, echoing and repeating and playing on loop. Mark had been about to tell him something, before the call had ended. Something about belief. Something about Sam, but kind of not. Something that he didn’t get to finish saying because…he swallowed, both hands clutching at his hair as he sank in his desk chair.

Because the call had started to flood with static, and then his phone had shocked him. Which he wasn’t even aware a smartphone could do, not when it was mostly unharmed like Jack’s was.

Another buzz from his phone alerted him to another message from Robin.

> **Robin:** _Wait, so you didn’t put that bit with Anti in the other video either?_  

Jack scrambled to pick up his phone, fumbling with it for a moment.

> **Jack:** _What video?_  
>  **Robin:** _The upload from this morning, the first one. The “Reading Your Comments” video._  
>  **Robin** **:** _You were answering some question about the egos…? I thought you were just messing with the community so I left it in._  
>  **Robin:** _But when I saw the second one in the Subnautica recording you sent me I thought I should ask._

Jack rapidly pulled up the video on his computer, scrubbing through it until he found the question Robin was talking about, because he already knew which one it was. He’d responded with something totally off-topic, something unrelated, just to be funny…and sure enough, as Video-Jack was reading the question aloud, there was a little visual distortion. Not much, but if you were looking for it, you’d see it. And way in the background, in the shadows in the corner…a silhouette. Brief. Barely there. A fraction of a second. A few frames, maybe. And it knocked all of Jack’s breath from him.

_‘Jack? Are you okay?’_

Sam had bounced onto the desk, into Jack’s line of sight, and the little eyeball was eyeing him with a look of innocent concern. Jack took a breath. Then another. He forced a smile.

“Y-Yeah. Yeah, o’ course. Fine.”

_‘You’re scared.’_

“…a little,” Jack admitted sheepishly. Sam could always read him, better than anyone. Having a mental link probably had something to do with it. “Sorry bud. I didn’t mean ta scare you.”

_‘Why are you scared?’_

Jack had no answer for him, not really. He couldn’t think of a way to say it. So instead he thought it. He pictured Anti, pictured the videos he’d made with him. And he let his fear seep through…just a little. Enough for Sam to get the idea. And Sam…his pupil widened a little and he squeaked.

_‘He’s real too?’_

“I dunno,” Jack shrugged, sinking further in his seat. He leaned forward, propping his elbow on the desk and burying his face in his hands, reverting to thinking from here on out.  _‘I dunno. It sounds stupid, sounds impossible. But…I dunno how else he’s showing up in videos, unless Robin’s lying. And I don’t think he would. Not this far.’_

Sam made a worried little noise and nudged Jack’s arm, nuzzling up against his hoodie sleeve. Trying to help. And it did, a little…because Jack managed to smile.

 

 

“C’mon, c’mon…” Jack was muttering at his phone and pacing, as though urging it on would somehow will the person on the other end to pick up the phone any faster. It was taking far too long. It was only as he finally heard someone on the line that it occurred to him what time it was in California.

“…h’lo?”

Jack winced, hearing the sleepiness in Mark’s voice, knowing he must have woken him up.

“Mark. Hi. God, sorry, I totally forgot what time it was over there…”

“Yeah, it’s…” There was a rustle of fabric, a muffled grumble. “…three in the fuckin’ morning.”

“Sorry. Shite. I didn’t think, I just called…I can…I can call back later…”

“Woah, wait, no, ‘s cool,” Mark mumbled. There was more movement on the other end, a light clicking on, a door opening and closing. A yawn. “Wassup?”

“…”

And now that he was actually talking to Mark, Jack began to realize how stupid he would sound the minute he opened his mouth.

“…Seán?”

“It’s…nothin’. Nevermind. I shouldn’t’ve called.” The words spilled out of him faster than he could think them, a hand dragging through his already-unkempt hair. Sam made a little noise of question from where he was sitting on the arm of the couch.

“Dude you sound like you saw a ghost.” Jack could hear the worried frown in his words. “Hold up, once sec…”

The call ended abruptly, but as soon as it had gone Jack’s phone was ringing again, this time for a Skype call. Jack sighed and answered it. His screen lit up with the rather sleepy-looking face of Mark, his hair a chaotic mess of bedhead and his mouth pulled down in a worried frown. Jack could only imagine how he looked himself. He’d been running his hands through his hair nonstop since he’d woken up, he’d had four cups of coffee, and he’d been jumping at shadows all morning. Mark blinked.

“Holy shit. You look like hell.”

Jack rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, thanks, I kinda figured that,” he grumbled, looking away for a moment.

“Are you okay? You seem…stressed. I’ve seen it in your videos too…”

Jack let a small, hysterical laugh bubble past his lips.

“I’m fine! Toootally great!” He said sarcastically. “I’m being held together by coffee and redbull and cookies and prayers! What could possibly be wrong?!”

“Jesus.” Mark stared at him like he was nuts. “The hell happened to you?”

And Jack just let out a slow breath, deflating.

“…just…a lot. Recently.”

“Is it Sam still?”

Jack didn’t even feel annoyed this time when Mark mentioned it, just sighing resignedly.

“…sort of. I mean that’s part of it, sure, but…” He trailed off, chewing his lip. Wondering if this was even a good idea in the first place.

“But what?” Mark asked. Jack looked at his screen again to see Mark sitting on a couch now, a soft light illuminating his tired features. Would Mark think he was fretting over nothing? Mark had his own dark persona on the internet, Darkiplier, and Jack was certain he was aware of Antisepticeye. But thinking that Anti was a real, living thing…or whatever Anti’s version of “living” would be…

“Jack?” Mark’s brow furrowed in concern.

“…I…eh…” Jack stared at his screen for another long moment. Then he sighed. “…I’m bein’ paranoid. That’s all.”

“Paranoid about what…?”

“Anti.”

A pause.

“…you mean, like, Evil-You?  _That_  Anti?”

“Yeah. That Anti. He…” Another pause, another sigh, a huff of frustration. Jack, running his hands through his hair for the umpteenth time. “…he’s shown up in a few o’ my videos, an’ I didn’t put ‘im there. I didn’t record stuff for it. I didn’t tell Robin to do it, an’ Robin claims he thought I was editing it like that. And I keep…I keep thinking he’s right behind me, right over my shoulder. And I started thinkin’ about what you were saying about “belief” before and I started to think it might be possible and I wanted to call you and ask and – you…probably think I’m absolutely off my rocker.” Jack flopped back onto the couch, his head thunking back against the wall behind it. He closed his eyes, expression strained. God, he sounded insane. Sam slipped off the armrest to snuggle up in Jack’s lap, out of sight of the camera. Trying to make him feel better.

“…would you call me crazy if I said I believed you?”

And just like that, Jack’s eyes were glued to the screen again, where he could see Mark avoiding looking at the camera, rubbing a hand over his mouth. Looking concerned.

“You’re joking.”

“Not…not this time, no.”

There was a seriousness to his tone that Jack wasn’t used to, that made him think maybe Mark really did mean what he was saying.

“Why?”

“Why do I believe you?” Mark asked, finally looking up to the camera. “Because I think–”

There was an odd, glitched distortion on the screen, the lighting around Mark changing and shifting for a brief, almost unnoticeable moment….and judging by the slight widening of Mark’s eyes and the way Jack gasped softly, they both knew that the other had just seen the same thing.

“…I think…I can’t talk about it. Not now. Not…” Mark glanced over his shoulder, his eyes landing on something off-screen, something near the ground. “You alright? It’s okay, I promise. I’m right here.” The camera’s angle changed, going lopsided as Mark leaned over to reach toward whatever was on the floor. Jack assumed it was probably his dog, Chica. Poor pup. He smiled softly in sympathy. Then Mark was back in the frame, and he looked a little strained.

“Look. I can’t…talk about it over the phone. Obviously he doesn’t want you knowing. But I’ll be in Europe for a tour soon. A few weeks from now. Just…hold out ‘till then, and we can talk then. I’ll stop by, or we can meet up–”

“Wait, who?” Jack interrupted, frowning. A minute fear seemed to build in his chest, a tension there that hadn’t been there before, and he found himself glancing over his shoulder despite the fact that it was broad daylight and he was sitting against a wall. Sam made a quiet noise of distress and cuddled closer to him, looking up at him. Jack’s free, shaking hand fell to his lap to pet the little eyeball. “ _Who_  doesn’t want me to know  _what_?”

“Later,” Mark insisted. “Not now. It’s not safe.”

“Why?!”

“Later!”

And Mark hung up. Jack tried, twice, to call him again - but both times Mark ignored him. He gritted his teeth and held Sam a little closer, suddenly scared to be alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear, when I began this story, this was not the direction I was planning on taking it. It was going to be a cute little fluff-friendship piece with Sam thrown into the mix, then…the story took on a mind of its own. So even I don’t know where it’d headed…but I promise there will be cutes ahead as well. That, at the very least, is still a part of the plan. <3


	5. The Livestream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Robin tries to iron out whatever difficulties are causing the delay in today's upload, Jack is forced to turn to their backup plan: a livestream. But viewers of today's stream are about to get a lot more than they bargained for when they stopped in to watch Jack play.

_‘Hi Jack! I wanted to know if you’ll have Sam in another video? He’s so cute!’  
_

_‘Hey there Jack, i’ve been watching your channel for a while and I wanted to say thank you for always making me smile. And by the way are you okay? You look really tired. Is Anti trying to take over again? xD’  
_

_‘Jack! Bro! Hi-five! *Wha-psh!* You’re so funny!!! I love your videos and I really like all the stuff you do with the egos. Is Schneep coming back? What about Chase? Does Sam count as an ego? I wanna see him again. He’s definitely real right?’  
_

_‘Is Sam real??? :0′  
_

_‘Holy shit #SamLives omfg’  
_

_‘You okay jack? You look really tired in your videos. Don’t forget to take care of yourself! You take care of us all the time, Maybe it’s our turn to take care of you! Get some rest and don’t worry about missing an upload. We’ll understand! <3’  
_

_‘Dude are you dropping hints again? Is Anti gonna show up again? I’m so scared! x3′_

 

Jack was sitting hunched over in his desk chair, scrolling through his asks on Tumblr with a slightly strained look on his face. It was becoming harder and harder to find ones he could answer without either lying or giving away hints about his future plans for the egos. He groaned and let his phone fall to the carpet, his head dropping to his desk with a quiet ‘thunk’. He really didn’t feel up to recording today.

It had been three days since his call with Mark and the other YouTuber had been evasive any time Jack tried to question him about what he’d been talking about. And since that call, Jack’s paranoia had only gotten worse. Four more recordings had shown hints of Anti in the background, and it made him scared to try and record another one when that glitch could be watching him, creeping up on him while he was fully immersed in a game. He had been editing out the glitches before passing his recordings on to Robin, had tried to cut out the parts where Anti had shown up and blamed the missing sections on “camera issues, don’t worry about it”. No need to worry Robin if it turned out to be nothing but paranoia. Jack didn’t want to be leaving clues where they didn’t exist, especially since he already had plans for the upcoming month. Anti showing up prematurely would ruin things. 

…then there was the fact that  _oh my god Anti is real what the hell is going on._  Because now, Jack was sure it wasn’t just him and Robin that had seen Anti. It wasn’t just his own caffeine-driven delirium or Robin playing a prank. No, the entire community was talking about it…which meant it really did happen. Anti really was showing up. Which made this entire situation that much more terrifying. Not only was he scared that people knew Sam was real…he was getting scared because everybody else thought Anti  _wasn’t_.

The buzz of his phone between his feet made him jump, heart pounding, and it took him a moment to catch his breath. Jesus…he panted softly, clutching at his chest, closing his eyes for a moment. It was nothing. Just his phone. Just…a text, or something. He picked it up, read Robin’s message, and groaned.

> **Robin** :  _Having issues with the second upload today. Might have to stream instead. Is that okay?_

Jack pressed his phone to his forehead, eyes squeezed shut, thinking. If he started a stream, and something happened live, he wouldn’t be able to cut it out. He wouldn’t be able to hide it. If he was streaming, people would see his exhaustion seeping through between his cheerful humor and energy.

Maybe he could wear makeup?

…not the worst plan

But that still left Anti…

With a huff, Jack sat back in his chair and typed back a reluctant message.

> **Jack** :  _Yeah…yeah, I can stream._  
>  **Jack:** _Keep an emergency contact on speed-dial just in case.  
> _ **Robin:** _Why? Expecting a break-in? You haven’t been playing The Game have you? That shit makes good nightmare fuel_  
>  **Robin:** _I doubt anything bad will happen lol…but sure, whatever you say._  
> 

Jack let his eyes close again and he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. Another message.

> **Robin:** _So should the emergency contact be Felix, or PJ, or should I just start screaming “HEY MA” if something goes wrong?_

Jack threw his phone across the room.

 

 

“NO! SCREW YOU KALE-POP-08!”

An hour into the stream, and those who were watching were all laughing as he died, yet again, in Fortnite. Not that he was really mad at all. He chuckled along with the rest of them, groaning at his defeat, flopping over in his chair.

“Jackieboy Man, beaten again! How could this happen to me?” He took a deep breath, singing at the top of his lungs: “How could this happen to meeee? I’ve made my mistaaaakes–”

The chat responded by spamming the lyrics, to which Jack let out a chuckle.

“Ah well…guess I’m still kinda mediocre. But hey! I finished fourth! Not bad at all.”

Jack grinned and opened his mouth to start using his “Announcer Voice™” to commentate on Kale-Pop-08′s game, when the chat suddenly switched gears. Everybody began spamming basically the same thing in all caps.

 

****»**  TURN AROUND! 0.0**

****»**  LOOK BEHIND YOU!!**

****»**  BEHIND YOU!  D:**

****»**  JACK, BEHIND YOU!!!**

 

All the color drained from Jack’s face and he spun in his seat, head whipping over his shoulder - and he let out a strangled sound, his eyes flying wide. There, in the corner, was a dark shadow. A distortion in the air. A  _glitch._  And Jack knew full well what it was. Anti. In the real world. Right behind him. This was the first time he had actually managed to spot the digital demon outside of replays of his own recordings…and he didn’t have a fucking clue how to handle it.

“No!” he shouted, running on autopilot, his chair falling out from beneath him and his headphones tumbling from his head. He scrambled to his feet, backing up against the desk, as far back from Anti as he could possibly get. “N-No! Stay back! Don’t…d-don’t touch me! I KNOW WHO YOU ARE!”

His tone was turning desperate and scared and the stream was all but forgotten, panic blinding him in the moment. The darkness warped, morphed, a pair of brilliant green eyes staring at him from the shadows. A glitching, distorted, high-pitched version of his own laugh echoed back at him and he shuddered, a chill running down his spine.

“B-Back off, Anti!” he snapped, his bravado fading fast. Then before he knew what was happening there was a hand gripping the front of his shirt and pitch-black eyes boring into his own.

“E͙ṅjͩo͆y̑iͭnͨg͛ o̠u᷈r͌ l᷉i᷅t̋tͣl̈e̘ g͡a̓m᷊e͘,̓ a᷄r̫é y̲o̒ū̦̩?͕”

The voice sounded so like his own, but at the same time - so different. Darker. Distorted. Broken. He barely had time to register what was happening before he found himself being yanked backward away from the desk, tumbling across the floor with a cry of shock. Jack dragged himself to his feet, trying to get out, get away - then his back was slammed against the wall and there was a hand at his throat.

“I͆'̾m̦ a᷉ ḷĭṫtͤl͙e̡ dͨi̇s̢a͞p̣pͪo̺ịn̤tͪe͐d͗ t͓h̓o͡u̪gh,” Anti sneered, grinning wickedly. “Tͩh̎ọu̢g̤h̤t͊ y͋o̮u͠'̭d͖ a̓t̛ l̇e̬aͧs̽tͤ lͣeͪt̏ t̫h̓e̎ w᷇o͊r̮l͏d̊ s̪e᷀e̐ m͜e͍.͗.̬.̏b̓u̗tͪ n͌o̩,͑ y̢o͒u᷇ h̔idͥ m̻e᷇ ăw͋a᷆y̠ l̕ḭk͡e ä́ di̓rͤty l͇ỉtͭt̰l̃e͙ s̜ȅcͪr᷉e᷈t̀.”

Jack clawed at the hand around his throat, but he couldn’t get a grip on it. It wasn’t fully solid. Trying to grab Anti’s hand was like trying to dig through a bin of tiny, static-charged Lego’s.

“H̾o͐w̎ m̿a̴n̒y̾ v̢i͂dͧe͖o̤s͖ dͪi̪d̐ Iͤ s͌h̖o͗w͠ ṳp͎ i͛n̉?̄ H̽oͨwͯ ma̾n̬y o͠f͎ t᷀h͘e̥m̶ d͙i̟ḑ y̩o᷈ủ c̬u͈t͎ m͋e͝ oͤu̼tͨ oͯf̗?͛”

Anti shook him roughly, clutching at Jack’s neck so tightly he found himself gasping, choking, trying to catch his breath. Anti turned away from Jack slightly, eyes landing on the computer across the room, the stream that was still going on…and he grinned, a wicked, sharp, dangerous grin.

“W̧e͒lͅl̔ y̡oͫư c̦aͫn̟'̯t͏ ću̸t̞ m͝eͫ o͎u̿t͙ o̩f̄ tͭh̭i͙s̓ o̡n̻e. Ťh̍ȇŷ c̯a̸n̄ s̐e͓e̒ mͣe̽ nͮoͯw̔,᷉ c̱a̬nͣ'͍t̙ t͂h͆eͦỷ?̪ B̜u̕t̙ i̱ť l̴ōôk̦s᷅ l͂i̐ke͍ t͌ḧ́e͕y͡ m̳i᷈g̬h̹t̓ hͤa͂v̖e̕ bͤȇe᷄n᷉ t̤ỏo̽ lͫa̘t̵e᷆.̍” He tilted his head to the side, his image glitching and delayed, the action looking far from human…and the laugh that left him was even less so. “Yͧo̿uͯ'ͣr̕e᷀ p̵a͔yͣi̜n̪g̓ a̤t̲t͞e̽n̼t͆ĩo̢n̬ nͫO͐w̋ A̕řE͘n̓'̈́T̛ y̎O᷉Ǘ?̟!͌?͌”

Jack was struggling, fighting, trying to get air, little spots appearing in his vision–

_‘Leave him alone!’_

A small but brave voice came to life in Jack’s head…and apparently, Anti heard him too, because the glitch flinched and took a step back. Not enough to let go of Jack, but enough to let him have some air. Anti’s grin faded and he looked…oddly tense, as far as Jack could tell from his spinning vision. He coughed, tried to warn Sam, tried to get him to leave.

“S̮t͈a̙y o͈u̪t͗ o͛f͎ t͇h͠i᷉s͆,ͨ S̥a̼m͝.ͦ”

_‘No! You stay out of it! L-Leave Jack alone! …please?’_

Jack couldn’t see Sam, didn’t know where he was, only knew he was somewhere on the ground, and the thought of him being involved in this at all…it terrified him, more than being alone in the room with Anti. He struggled harder against Anti’s hold. He had to get away, had to…had to keep Sam safe…had to protect…

“…I̛ w͞a᷉s᷄ g͋e͇t̖t̾i̗n’ b̎o͡r͘e̴dͤ a̴nͩy͉w᷁a͔y͐.”

And much to Jack’s shock and relief, Anti glitched and distorted, disappearing and reappearing across the room, still in the camera’s view but out of Jack’s reach. Jack let out a hoarse, strangled gasp and crumpled to the ground, coughing, trying to breath, clutching at his throat as though he couldn’t believe he was still alive.

He really, honestly, couldn’t.

Anti let out a dramatic, glitching sigh.

“S͐'͎p̀p̭o̲s͝e̾ I̾'͔l̂lͮ h̒âvͧe̦ ṭa͎ sͥa͓v͈e͈ t̔h᷇e͇ f᷀u̯n̲ u̮n̥t̜i͏l̈́ n͢e᷆x̐t᷉ ṫỉmͥe͑,ͪ J̱a᷁c̹ǩa̱b̘o᷄yͨ~”

The glitch shot one last, giggling grin at the camera, the vanished with a flurry of distorted pixels.

_‘…Jack? J-Jack, are you okay?’  
_

Jack nodded mutely, still struggling to find his breath, to find his voice.

_‘Yeah. Thanks Sam. I think you might have saved my life.’  
_

Sam preened at the words, his worries fading away in favor of a few happy squeaks and a little cuddling against Jack’s leg. Jack smiled softly. He raised his head, eyes locking on the computer, on the desk. The stream.

Oh, _fuck_ , the stream–

Jack scrambled to his feet, scooping Sam up as he went and tucking him in his hoodie pocket, careful to keep him out of sight of the camera. He stumbled over to the desk and dragged his chair back to where it was supposed to be, dropping into it and staring into the lens. He opened his mouth - and he couldn’t think of what to say. His entire body was still pulsing with terror, his hands shaking horribly and his eyes twitching nervously as though he was sure Anti was still hiding in the corners of the room. Jack, for once in his life, was utterly speechless.

He had almost been killed.

He had almost died.

If Sam hadn’t been there, he was certain he would have.

And suddenly it was like everything came collapsing down on him at once, the adrenaline wearing off and giving way to the shock and the fear and the overwhelming emotions that accompanied a near-death experience. He shuddered and buried his face in his hands, knowing full well he was being watching, knowing full well that thousands of people were witnessing his breakdown.

“…s-sorry,” he finally managed. The word was mangled and hoarse and came out a little wheezy. “Sorry you…s-saw… _fuckin’ hell_ …”

It was with a shaking breath and shaking shoulders that he forced himself to look up at the screen, his eyes seeking out the livestream chat.

 

****»**  Holy shit did you see that?!**

****»**  Guys I don’t think that was fake, look at Jack**

****»**  Dude Jack are you okay?!? **

****»**  That looked real. Holy fuck how did they make it look so real????**

****»**  Look at him, he looks so scared**

****»**  Ohmygod Jack! Are you okay?**

****»**  That was some amazing editing, holy shit I’m dying**

****»**  JACK! TALK TO US! PLEASE LET US KNOW YOU’RE OKAY!**

****»**  He looks absolutely terrified, I don’t think he’s faking it, I think that really happened**

****»**  Guys look at the marks on his neck**

****»**  OH MY GOD I CAN’T BELIEVE I JUST SAW THAT HOW DID HE DO THAT WHAT THE FUCK**

****»**  Jack? Are you alright? Please say you’re alright, I’m so worried about you!**

 

****Jack took a breath, then another, a half-hearted, shaking smile making its way onto his features.

“I’m alright,” he assured them, knowing he sounded like hell and knowing it was half a lie. “Jus’…just a little shaken, is all. I’ll be–” He broke off with a cough, wincing. “…I’ll be f-fine. Just need ta rest fer awhile. I dunno if I’ll be able to scream for ya for a few days. Heh…”

He tried to lighten the mood with a joke, and while it seemed to calm some of the chat, knowing he could still be humorous after that, many were still worried.

“…I’m…I’m gonna end the stream here, I think. Sorry for cuttin’ it short.”

And after a quick, and much quieter, goodbye, Jack turned off his camera. He sank back into his seat, eyes closed, and dragged both shaking hands down his face. What…what the hell was he supposed to do now…? Sam made a quiet questioning noise from his pocket and his breath caught, pulse skyrocketing. Sam…Sam could’ve gotten hurt. He, Jack, could have died, and–

–and suddenly he was out of his seat, staggering from the room and finding his way to the bathroom, turning on the faucet. It took him almost three tries to do it, his other hand clutching the basin like his life depending on it. Then he was splashing water in his face. Trying not to throw up. Trying to calm himself down. Because if anything was going to prove to him that Anti was real, what had happened tonight certainly did it.

Jack didn’t even bother eating dinner or changing into pajamas. It took everything he had to make it to his bedroom, and once he was there he curled up, shaking beneath the covers, his phone flung to the other side of the room, Sam curled up against his chest. He couldn’t even trust technology anymore. Anti had only ever shown up in videos. He had only ever shown up while Jack was at his computer. And, perhaps, during that phone call with Mark where his perfectly-unbroken phone had shocked him. So despite the buzzing he could hear across the room, despite the number of times he saw the screen light up, no way in hell was he going to answer it. He wasn’t going to risk it.

Jack ignored it, and he ignored the rest of the world…and now, here, alone in the dark with Sam as his company, he finally let himself break. A strangled sob broke free from his damaged throat and he cried, actually openly cried, for the first time in a very, very long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> …sorry? ^^;


	6. Surprise Visit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath of the livestream, Jack is shocked by the appearance of somebody he didn't expect to see. It isn't an entirely unwelcome visit either.

The banging that woke Jack the following morning made him nearly jump out of his skin. As it were, he ended up flailing and crying out, tumbling from his bed in a tangle of sheets and blankets. It took him another minute to try and detangle himself from the blankets and leave the room, and in that time he had finally remembered what had transpired the evening before. **  
**

_The stream._

_Anti._

_Sam._

He froze in the hallway, eyes wide, breath quickening.

_‘No…n-no, don’t…don’t think about it. There's no way that Anti's here, that Anti is the one making such a racket. Not…not possible. R-Right?’_

The banging started up again, and Jack realized it was somebody knocking loudly at his door.

Oh. Right. Okay. Yes. Anti - Anti wouldn’t knock on his door, he’d just…appear. In the middle of the room. Whenever he felt like it.

Jack swallowed thickly, wincing at how sore his throat still felt, and crept further away from his bedroom. Each step, each sound, each flicker of a shadow made him jump, made him twitch. Made him wish he’d never left his bed in the first place.

“Jack?! Jack! C’mon, please, open the door! I don’t care if you’re asleep, I need to see your stupid Irish face!”

And that voice made him blink stupidly because now he was sure he was hearing things.

_‘Jack, are you gonna answer that? He’s very loud.’_

Jack glanced down to his hoodie pocket - oh, right, he hadn’t changed his clothes last night - and saw Sam peeking out from the side opening.

“Yeah…yeah, I’ve got it.”

Before he could find another reason to hesitate, to rethink his actions, he crossed to the front door and unlocked it, opening it wide to reveal–

“…Mark?!”

Markiplier, in the flesh, was standing on his doorstep with one hand clutching his suitcase handle and the other raised, mid-knock. He blinked, apparently surprised to see the door open. Then his expression morphed between a few emotions rather quickly, from shock to panic to concern, before finally resting in a state of utter relief.

“Jack! Oh, thank God!” Mark abandoned his suitcase to draw Jack into a tight, desperate hug, clinging to him like he might never see him again. “You’re alive…oh, my god, I was so scared…”

“I’m f-fine…” Jack stammered, hugging Mark back a little awkwardly. He sucked in a wheezing breath. “…can’t…can’t breathe, Markimoo…”

“Oh! Yeah, shit, sorry, I didn’t think…” Mark let him go immediately, holding him by the shoulders and looking him over. His eyes landed on Jack’s neck, on the bruises there. He tensed and swallowed thickly. “…y-yeah. I forgot. I’m…sorry.”

Jack caught Mark’s glance and he ducked his head, avoiding the other YouTuber’s gaze. His hand trailed up to his throat and his fingers brushed across the bruised skin there. He winced.

“…you saw the stream then.”

It wasn’t a question. Jack saw Mark’s shoes fidgeting against the ground as he shifted on the spot.

“Well yeah, of course I did. I caught the end of it and I tried to call you but–”

“I haven’t had my phone on me.” Jack cleared his throat with a wince and stood aside. He tried to pull on a smile. “Are ye gonna come in or would you rather stand outside all day?”

Mark chuckled at the weak attempt at humor and slipped past Jack into his apartment, his suitcase wheels clicking as they passed over the doorway. There was a tension in the air, unspoken but there. Not necessarily between Mark and Jack, no, but…it was there nonetheless. Palpable. Jack closed the door behind Mark and he found himself flipping every lock, both the handle and the deadbolt, and the door chain as well. The logical part of his mind pointed out that locks and doors wouldn’t keep Anti at bay…but it made him feel safer somehow. Just a little. Just enough for it to help.

The Irishman shuffled past Mark - who was still ogling Jack’s place from his spot near the door - and let one hand slip into his hoodie pocket. Sam curled his tail around Jack’s finger and he tried to focus on that to help keep himself grounded.

“D’you want anything?” he mumbled with a glance back in Mark’s direction. He ruffled his hair with his free hand, trying to wake up. “Coffee? I dunno…a fizzy drink? Or, what is it you Americans call it. Pop?”

“I do  _not_  call it pop,” Mark spluttered, finally dragging his attention away from Seán's decor to shake his head vehemently. “No! Gross! Heathens!”

At that, Jack managed a full, heartfelt laugh, his expression brightening. Mark chuckled a little too, and Jack rolled his eyes.

“Alright, alright,  _soda_  then. Whatever! Do you want something or not?”

“Just a water would be great. I didn’t drink anything during my flight.”

“One water, comin’ right up,” Jack shot him a one-handed finger-gun and slipped into the kitchen. He raised his voice a little to continue talking to Mark from the next room over, his words coming out a little raspy. “I thought you weren’t supposed ta come to Europe for a few more weeks?”

“…uh, yeah. About that…”

Jack could hear shuffling in the other room, the sound of Mark’s suitcase being moved. Footsteps.

“…I kinda showed up early.”

Mark’s voice came from a few feet away and Jack jumped, nearly dropping the glass he’d been filling. He gripped the edge of the counter and snapped his gaze to the other YouTuber, taking a few rapid breaths and fighting to calm his pounding heart.

“By Jaysus, Mark, you can’t scare me like that! Fuckin’ hell…” He ran an unsteady hand through his hair then turned off the water, holding the glass out for Mark to take. “…early? Two  _weeks_  early?”

“I…might have bought a plane ticket when you didn’t answer my calls…?” Mark looked a little sheepish, rubbing the back of his neck and chuckling softly. “I panicked. A bit.”

Jack stared at him.

“…you bought a plane ticket, on a whim, because I wasn’t pickin’ up my phone?” he repeated, still trying to process.

He shook his head and walked past Mark back into the living room. Sam nudged up against his palm from his spot in Jack’s hoodie pocket, and Jack brushed his thumb against the little eyeball, silently letting him know he was alright.

“Why th’ hell did you do that?” he continued. “Does Amy know?”

“Yeah! Yeah, of course she knows!” Mark grinned and hurried to follow him. “She offered to come too but…uh…she ended up staying behind, to help with tour prep.”

“ _She_ stayed behind to help with tour prep? For  _your_  tour?” Jack snickered a little, glancing back at his friend. He stopped in front of the couch. His smile softened and his brows furrowed in minute confusion. “But still, why?”

“Because I thought…” Mark trailed off and his smile slipped. “…I…well, I was scared you might be…dead.”

Jack paled. He sank onto the couch behind him, sucking in a shaking, unsteady breath.

“…y-yeah?” he managed, his throat suddenly feeling much more hoarse than it had a moment ago.

“Oh, god! Sorry! Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that,” Mark shook his head. He dropped into the chair beside the couch, setting his untouched water aside on the coffee table.

“Jack, I watched what happened on your stream. I remembered you’d told me you thought Anti might be real. And when I saw what he did to you, I...I tried to call you, tried texting you. Skype message, Twitter, Instagram, everything. And you didn’t answer. So then I messaged PJ since he lives nearby, and he told me he hadn’t been able to get through to you either but that he didn’t think much of it. I didn’t get anything back from Robin–” A pause. “Does Robin know what happened?”

“Probably,” Jack mumbled, staring into his lap. “He’s the one who caught the first glitches in my videos when this whole mess started. He kinda thought I was jokin’ when I suggested it was Anti an’ instead of tryin’ to convince him I just...er.”

Jack shrugged awkwardly. He hadn’t been telling Robin about Anti’s more recent occasional appearances in the background of his videos. Instead he had been brushing it off and hoping it was nothing, pretending he wasn’t scared, pretending nothing was wrong. He had foolishly hoped it was just an issue with his camera and had told Robin as such, suggesting that perhaps the stress from the #SamLives situation was just making him paranoid. Nothing would happen, surely.

And look how that had turned out.

Jack cleared his throat with a wince and continued, picking at a loose thread at the edge of the couch cushion, his knee bouncing as he did so.

“I’ve been...erm. Cutting any new glitching out of the recordings I send him. Have been for days. Dunno if he was watching the stream but I bet he’s seen it by now...”

“Oh…” Mark nodded slowly. He glanced around the room. “...does he know about Sam too?”

Jack stiffened and he felt Sam freeze where he was hidden in Jack’s pocket.

“About the...eh...the “Sam Lives” thing? Yeah, he called me the morning after it went viral. He kept tryin’ to tell me to sleep better, but it didn’t do much good. I was too stressed–”

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

“What do you mean then?” Jack asked stiffly. “You still set on believin’ Sam’s real?”

“Anti’s real.”

“So what?” Jack snapped, twitching at the name, his frazzled nerves putting him on edge. “Why are you so set on this? Why are you so set on Sam bein’ real too?”

“Because–” Mark huffed and dragged both hands through his hair, looking around.

Brown eyes fell on his suitcase and his expression seemed to light up then grow more determined, as if he’d gotten an idea and decided, in that moment, that he’d follow through with it. He reached over and lifted off a small pet carrier that had been balanced on top of the suitcase, a carrier that Jack hadn’t noticed before.

Mark set it gently in his lap and opened up the front zipper, turning it toward Jack. At first, Jack didn’t understand what he was supposed to be seeing. Then a small brown mitten-like hand came into the light, peeking around the edge of the carrier, and it was shortly followed by the smallest crate Jack had ever seen in his life.

No…no, it wasn’t a crate. It was a box. A box, with tiny, mitten-shaped hands, and with bright blue eyes that were full of so much innocence…and suddenly Jack understood.

“Tim,” he breathed, eyes wide. “Tiny Box Tim. Holy…"

“I know.” Mark almost sounded proud. He held out a hand for Tim to climb onto. “C’mon, buddy. It’s alright. Jack’s a friend. You remember him, right?”

Tim tumbled out onto Mark’s palm and clung to his thumb. He was a little bigger than the width of Mark’s hand…maybe four, five inches across? Jack let out a soft breath and leaned forward, minutely aware of Sam tugging at his fingers with his tail, tiny, curious questions filtering through in the back of his mind. Tim blinked up at Jack and a tiny smile appeared on his face.

“H-Hiya…”

And, holy shit, if that wasn’t the cutest damned thing Jack had ever seen in his life.

“How…?”

“I’m not sure,” Mark shook his head. “I only have a theory. The one I was trying to tell you a few days ago. But that’s why, when your video came out with Sam, I kinda assumed…”

Mark chuckled sheepishly, moving the pet carrier out of the way to bring Tim backward into his lap. He let his free hand fall beside the tiny box, his thumb rubbing up against Tim’s “cheek”. Tim let out a tiny, child-like giggle.

Jack felt a little guilty now, lying to Mark, when he now knew why Mark had believed in Sam so easily. He’d been hiding Sam for a reason. He’d been trying to keep Sam safe. But now…knowing that Mark had a similar burden, a similar little companion…knowing that Tim was just as real as Sam was and that Mark hadn’t just been grasping at straws with his “theory”…

“You assumed right,” he mumbled after a moment. Mark slowly looked up to meet his eyes.

“Did I?” he grinned cheekily. “Are you finally gonna stop trying to cover it up?”

“From you? Yeah.” Jack smiled a sheepish smile and drew his hand out of his pocket, with Sam sitting comfortably in his palm. The little eyeball let out a squeak of surprise and his tail tightened around Jack’s fingers. He fidgeted rapidly on the spot, looking around in a panic, finally locking his gaze on Jack.

_‘You said I’ve gotta hide! Only Robin and you are s’pposed ta see me–’_

“I know, I know what I said,” Jack said quickly, quietly. He smiled in reassurance. “But we’re gonna add another person to that list, okay? This is my friend Mark.”

Sam was hiding behind Jack’s fingers, peeking through the gap to look at Mark, who was trying and failing to hide the adoring and excited smile on his face. The little eyeball shivered.

_‘…Mark’s…safe?’_

“Mhm. Mark’s safe too. Okay?”

_‘O-Okay…’_

“How is he doing that?” Mark asked, wonder in his eyes.

“Hm?” Jack looked up from Sam, frowning. “Doing what?”

“Talking like that. In my head.”

“Oh! Oh, right, I forgot…” Jack chuckled a little. “Sam doesn’t exactly have a mouth. I dunno how he does it, but he uses telepathy to speak. And I can talk back to him the same way…but…I don’t think everyone can do that. Might just be me.”

_‘Anti can do it, too.’_

Jack’s breath caught and he stared down at Sam with wide eyes.

“…what…what did you say?”

Sam seemed to shrink in on himself, looking as though he thought he’d done something wrong.

_‘…Anti can do it too? He…he talked to me. W-When he showed up.’_

“What did he say?” Jack asked his hands shaking where they were cupped under Sam.

_‘He just…just said I might not b-be there to…to protect you, next time…’_

Jack let out a shaking, unsteady breath and sank back into the couch, trying not to show how scared he was in front of Mark. Next time. Anti was planning on coming back, again. Not that it really surprised him…he’d been expecting it, honestly, but…hearing it confirmed…

“Jack?”

Jack swallowed thickly, forcing himself to look up at Mark. There was concern in his eyes, worry behind his glasses, a frown drawing his lips downward.

“You alright buddy?”

Was he? Jack…wasn’t even sure anymore. He had thought he was. Not great, perhaps, but ‘alright’ at least. Stable. Beyond his panic, beyond the full, mounting terror that had been pulsing through him last night. He sucked in a breath and let it out, slowly, shakily. Sam nuzzled against his fingers and he let his hands rest in his lap, his thumb running along Sam’s tail in an attempt to keep himself grounded. To keep his head level.

“I…I dunno…” he admitted in a hoarse whisper. “I don’t know. I don’t…” His breath caught and he sucked in a shuddering breath. He felt himself falling apart again, falling into panic. Anti could come back at any second and he was panicking and Mark was sitting  _right there_ and he _couldn’t catch his breath_ –

Blue eyes fell tightly shut and he ducked his head, unruly dark hair falling forward and brushing across his forehead. Jack shuddered and curled in on himself and his throat suddenly felt tight, painful. Like he was being strangled all over again. Like his air was being cut off. Like–

“Woah woah woah, hey, Jack–”

Mark’s voice sounded like it was coming from the end of a very long tunnel. He was barely aware of a weight settling onto the couch beside him, barely aware of Sam tucking himself away in his hoodie pocket again. His head was spinning and he couldn’t think straight and he could hear Anti’s laughter and he could see dark eyes and a glitching smile and could feel a hand on his throat and he couldn’t  _breathe_ –

“Jack! Jack, listen to me! Snap out of it! C’mon, try to…try to breathe with me…focus on me…”

Jack felt a warm arm around his shoulders, pulling him close. Somebody had grabbed his hand and he felt something soft and warm beneath his palm. A heartbeat. Mark’s chest, rising and falling.

“Breath with me, okay? In…out…c’mon…”

And Jack tried to focus. He locked onto the gentle, repeated movement beneath his fingers and tried to keep himself from spiralling any further. He sucked in a breath, too fast, too quick, and he forced himself to let it out slower than he’d taken it in.

“Yeah…like that. Good. Okay. Just…just keep doing that, alright?”

It took another few minutes for Jack to catch his breath and to find some semblance of solidity in the real world. It took more effort than it should have for him to open his eyes…and another moment for him to realize his cheeks were wet. Had he been crying? Oh, gods…Jack tried to pull away from Mark, shoving against the other YouTuber’s shoulders. Mark had seen that? Fuckin’ hell.

“Jack, calm down! Heyheyhey, woah–”

“I’m f-fine!” Jack said hoarsely. He coughed and scrubbed at his eyes with his sleeves, turning away from Mark to try and hide his face. “I’m…I’m fine, o-okay? Sorry…s-sorry, God, you shouldn’t‘ve s-seen that.”

“Seen what?” Mark asked, reaching out to try and turn Jack toward him again. “Dude, you don’t have to be embarrassed. You don’t think I haven’t cried before?”

“I shouldn’t be so s-scared!” Jack shot back, voice shaking, shrugging off Mark’s hand. “It’s p-pathetic! He’s not even s-supposed to be  _real!”_

“That’s exactly why you  _should_  be scared!” Mark protested, still trying to get Jack to turn around. “He  _shouldn’t_  be real! And – shit, Jack – he tried to kill you last night! If anyone deserves to be scared right now it’s you!”

The words rang through the quiet apartment in the near-silence that followed. All that could be heard were the sound of Jack’s breath catching every so often and the quiet noises of distress that Sam kept making. The little eyeball slipped out of Jack’s pocket and nuzzled up against him before rolling away and bouncing off his lap, popping over to the chair Mark had abandoned. Tim still sat there half-hidden behind the pillow, his bright blue eyes peeking around the corner. Watching. Worried. Sam snuggled down into the chair beside the tiny box and it didn’t take long for the pair to doze off, cuddling together against the pillow that was, in comparison, much larger than the both of them combined.

Jack sniffed softly and Mark sat back a little, worried that he might have been a little too forceful…but then the stubborn Irishman finally gave in, turning back to face his friend with shining, puffy eyes. He shuddered in his seat and curled in on himself, choking back a sob, and took another slow breath.

“…I…I am,” he admitted on a whispered breath. “Christ, Mark, I  _am_. I’m so…s-so fuckin’  _scared_. I thought…I thought maybe I was s-seein’ things, the first time I caught ‘im in a video. Or I thought Robin was playin’ a…I dunno, a joke. Y-Ya know? Heh…”

A humorless chuckle escaped him. He rested his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands, shoulders shaking.

“…he sh-shouldn’t be r...real…an’ he’s not gonna stop. He said so. S-Said he’d finish the game n-next time, an’…and I don’t…I can’t…”

Jack cut himself off when he felt Mark’s hand on his back, rubbing small circles there in an effort to calm him down. He hiccuped and stifled another sob, his fingers clenching along his hairline.

“I know.” Mark’s low, deep timbre cut through Jack’s panic, and the smaller man focussed on that as an anchor. “That’s why I came here so suddenly. I was worried, and I was scared. Watching that stream…it scared the hell out of me, Jack. Amy could tell you - I  was panicking. Out of everyone I’ve met on YouTube, you’re my closest friend, and watching my best friend get hurt like that, so far away where I couldn’t do a damned thing to help–”

Jack lifted his head weakly to glance at Mark over his shoulder, a curious look on his face.

“…I’m your best friend?”

Now it was Mark’s turn to be speechless. He chuckled sheepishly and scratched at the back of his head, shrugging a little.

“Well…yeah, you are.” He hesitated. “Not that it has to be mutual but…that’s…yeah.”

A soft, tired smile slowly found its way onto Jack’s face through the stress and the strain that had found its permanent home there.

“Oh shut up ya doof,” he mumbled, letting his hands fall to hang between his knees. He nudged Mark with his shoulder. “You’re my best friend too. Jus’ a bit…surprised to hear it back, I guess.”

Mark’s grin brightened. He put on a high-pitched sassy voice in mockery of a middle school girl.

“OMG, besties!!!”

Jack huffed out a quiet, tired laugh and shook his head. This time he didn’t fight it when Mark pulled him into a hug.

“Thanks Mark,” he mumbled against the other YouTuber’s shirt. “I’m glad you’re here. I…I don’t wanna be alone here for a while.”

“Hey, don’t mention it. I wouldn’t want to be alone either.”

There was a moment of silence. Then…

“But I might make you take a shower and change your clothes. I don’t know how long you’ve been wearing this hoodie but it smells like shit.”

“Oh, fuck off…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So…ya know…that was a much less stressful chapter than the last one! Right? Heh… ^^;;;


	7. A Study In Belief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mark finally explains to Jack what he's been trying to tell him from the beginning.

“What was it you were saying about belief, on the phone?”

 

With all the stress of what had happened in the apartment, Mark had suggested he and Jack go out and grab lunch somewhere in Brighton. Jack, of course, had vehemently agreed. So here they were, currently hiding away in the corner of some coffee shop, eating sandwiches and - in Jack’s case - drinking coffee like he might just die if he didn’t. Mark had brought the mesh pet carrier along, so every few minutes he could sneak bits of food in for Tim to munch on while Jack did the same with Sam in his pocket.

“…how the hell does Sam even eat?” Mark had asked, to which Jack had just shrugged.

“Absorbs it, sort of. I dunno. I stopped tryin’ to make sense of him the day I found out he can fly.”

“He can FLY?!”

And, oh, the looks they had received after that outburst…

 

“Belief?” Mark repeated, slipping another piece of his crust to Tim. He snickered. “You mean when I was trying to draw parallels between life changing events and a videogame?”

“Yeah, that,” Jack chuckled a little himself. “You were talkin’ about Bendy, right? Joey Drew? His whole insane monologue with belief and cheating death an’ stuff?”

“Well it wasn’t  _that_  insane…”

“It was a little insane. I’m pretty sure he started a cult.”

“Okay, yes, in  _that_  context it was pretty nuts. But – hey, don’t laugh! This is some serious shit!”

Jack tried to stifle his laughter, hiding his grin behind his cup of coffee even as he saw Mark trying to do the same.

“Sorry!” he giggled. “Sorry, continue with your serious shit. I’m listening.”

“Thank you!”

Mark sighed dramatically as a waitress walked past their table, making a big show of gesturing at Jack with both hands.

“This guy! Never lets me get a word in edgewise, always making fun of me! Worst friend ever.”

“Hey, I’m your  _best_  friend, you said so yourself,” Jack retorted while the waitress giggled to herself. “Now get on with your “belief” rant. I’m waiting.”

“Okay! Okay!” Mark rolled his eyes and leaned forward across the table, lowering his voice for dramatic effect.

“Belief. It can do amazing, impossible things. It can bring together hoards of people or help a single man reach stardom. With enough belief a lone YouTuber might even be able to reach the highest shelf in the kitchen even though he’s always been too damn short to get to it–”

“Is there a point to all this?” Jack was really fighting laughter now. “By Jaysus…”

“Sorry, serious face. Serious shit.” Mark tried to pass off a laugh as a cough and took a sip from his coffee, smiling all the while. “Actually serious this time. I promise.”

“Thank God.”

“Okay. So.” Mark glanced around to make sure nobody at the nearby tables was listening in before starting. “So in Bendy and the Ink Machine, Joey Drew was talking about how belief can do impossible things. Like, just belief, by itself.”

“Yeah, I remember,” Jack nodded, holding his steaming cup of coffee beneath his face to warm himself up a little. “I’ve played it before. A lot, actually.”

“Just so you could hear your own voice in the game,” Mark scoffed.

“Hey! No! That is  _not_  the only reason!” Jack protested, pointing a finger accusingly at Mark. “Serious shit, remember?”

“Yeah, okay, serious shit.” Mark schooled his expression. “Anyway. Tim showed up a few years ago. At the time, it scared the shit out of me, because how the hell do you explain to somebody that your imaginary character from YouTube suddenly came to life in the middle of your recording session and you have no idea how or why he’s there?”

“I feel ya,” Jack muttered knowingly, passing another piece of sandwich into his pocket for Sam.

“Right. So he showed up and I just kind of…accepted it? Because he’s my little biscuit, and he was so scared and nervous, and how could I leave him alone when he needed me? And it wasn’t like he was causing trouble. It was like suddenly having a…well, a pet, kind of. Or a baby, but less needy.”

“A familiar?” Jack murmured into his coffee, taking a sip.

“YES! Yes, exactly!” Mark snapped and pointed at Jack, nodding. “That’s exactly what it’s like! So, ya know, there was nothing bad about it. So I never really got around to figuring out how he came to be. But then…” Mark lowered his voice and ran a hand through his hair, glancing around. Double checking. Jack started bouncing his knee beneath the table, his nerves getting the best of him. “…weird things started happening, more recently. And I mean like - in the past six or seven months, recently. Before I even knew Sam existed.”

“What kinds of weird things?” Jack asked tensely.

Mark opened his mouth, closed it, and stared down into his drink. He didn’t speak for a moment, the brief pause filled only be the sound of dishes clinking and the soft babble of other conversations carrying through the cafe. Sam shifted in Jack’s hoodie pocket, getting more comfortable.

Then Mark cleared his throat and shook his head, his train of thought changing for a moment.

“I’ve…er…been thinking about it a lot more recently. Why Tim even exists, I mean.” Mark swallowed thickly. “With the things I’ve been seeing, I’ve had my suspicions for a few months now, but nothing solid ever came of it on my end. I never had proof. So when you called me about Anti…well I knew I had to be right, or at least thinking in the right direction.”

“What th’ hell are you talkin’ about?” Jack asked. His words came out a little more sharply than he intended, and Mark winced. Brown eyes raised to lock onto blue.

“…the truth is, I don’t think Anti is the only one who exists now,” Mark told him. He sounded hesitant, as though a little scared to even say it.

“Who else do you think exists?” Jack asked. “Besides Sam and Tim and Anti, I mean.”

“Dark.”

“Darkiplier?” Jack hissed, and Mark shushed him quickly, looking around. Jack lowered his voice to a loud whisper and leaned forward across the table. “Darkiplier? Like, wears a suit, red-and-blue, creepy evil-you Darkiplier?”

“What other Darkiplier would I be referring to?” Mark whispered back sharply, gesturing wildly with his hands. “Yes, Darkiplier! Evil-Me!”

“Darkiplier and A...Antisepticeye. Holy fuckin’ hell…” Jack sank back in his chair and dragged a hand over his face, his exhaustion seeping through to the surface. “Christ almighty. Both of ‘em. This…this is ridiculous…”

A little hysterical giggle escaped him. It slowly built into a distressed groan and he let out a few dramatic, fake, whining sobs.

“Maaaark, we’re gonna diiiiie….” He folded his arms on the table and let his head fall onto them with a muffled thump. He whimpered dramatically. “Th’ hell are we supposed to do noooow?” He dragged his head up just enough to look at Mark’s face through his hair. “…you’re sure he’s  _actually_  real?”

Mark had been watching the entire display with an expression that fell between tense nervousness and humor-lined disbelief.

“About ninety percent,” he shrugged, still keeping his voice down. “I keep…hearing my own voice when I’m getting a drink in the middle of the night. Or I keep seeing red and blue out of the corner of my eye. Things keep moving from their spot when I’m not looking, and I know it’s not just Amy moving things and not telling me because it happens between glances when nobody else is in the room. It’s  _weird_.”

“You haven’t actually  _seen_  him though?” Jack asked, confused, his chin resting on his arms now. “The...er...the _glitch_ has been showin’ face as often as possible, jus’ not when I’m actually looking. The stream last night was the first time he…”

Jack trailed off and looked away, gripping his own arms tightly to keep the memory at bay. Sam sent a little mental hug along through his thoughts and Jack was more than grateful for it.

“Yeah, I know,” Mark said softly. There was understanding in his tone and he quickly tried to move forward in the conversation.

“See that’s the thing,” he said enthusiastically, leaning forward across the table. “Dark and Anti are different. They’re both - well, evil, I guess. But they’re different people, different characters. Anti seems to like a spectacle. He likes being seen, and he wants as many people to see him on screen as possible. He seems to like showing off. Which…I mean, it’s just a theory–”

“A game theory?” Jack muttered automatically, and Mark blew a raspberry at him.

“No. Shut up.” He blinked, glanced away. “…where was I?”

“It’s just a theory?” Jack suggested with a soft smirk.

“…yeeeaaaah,” Mark nodded slowly, then quicker when he found his train of thought again. “Yeah! Okay. So it’s just a theory, but I think that’s why he’s only been showing up in your videos but not anywhere else. Not yet anyway.”

“He’s been in my videos more than I’ve been uploading actually,” Jack told him, shifting in his seat and resting his head sideways on his arms now. He watched the steam rise from his coffee cup on the table. “I think I mentioned before...I kept cuttin’ him out before sending stuff to Robin because I didn’t want people to think I was plannin’ anything. I’ve got stuff coming up next month but…not yet.”

“Oh yeah, Anti mentioned that when he showed up last night,” Mark muttered. It sounded like he was thinking. “He didn’t sound too happy about you taking him out of your videos. That’s probably why he made such a scene on the stream. He had a hell of an audience.”

“What about Dark?” Jack asked, trying to switch gears. He really didn’t want to think about the stream right now, didn't want to talk about it. His throat was still sore from what Anti had done to him.

“Dark’s more subtle,” Mark said quietly. “He works behind the scenes. He doesn’t deal with face-to-face conflict as much. He mostly sticks to the shadows. I mean, I gave him his backstory, I should know this.” Jack heard him pause. “…honestly, it makes me wonder if  _‘Who Killed Markiplier’_  wasn’t a horrible, horrible idea.”

“…why?” Jack sat up, frowning, looking up at Mark…and he was a little surprised to see the genuine worry that had set in across Mark’s face. He was dragging a hand over his mouth and staring down at his plate, lost in thought, a worried crease furrowing his brow.

“Mark? You okay man?”

“I was talking about belief before,” Mark said after a long moment, his hand falling into his lap. “It’s the theory I have for why Sam and Tim exist, and it’s the same theory that applies to Anti and Dark.”

“You still haven’t explained what you meant by that.”

“How many subscribers do you have?”

The question threw Jack for a moment and he stared at Mark in baffled silence before answering.

“…what? Uh…I dunno, ‘bout eighteen million.”

“Eighteen million people,” Mark repeated. “And how many of them probably know who Sam is?”

“A lot of ‘em. Almost all of them, most likely.”

“And Anti?”

“Not as many, but…I mean still, the number’s in the millions.”

“That’s a lot of people, all centered around one YouTube channel, all looking for another sign of Anti showing up. All drawing art or making little plushies for Sam. A lot of them probably want to believe it’s real even though logic tells them it isn’t.”

“…what are you saying?” Jack asked slowly, still trying to follow Mark’s explanation. Mark looked up, worry still etched in his gaze.

“I don’t know how, but I think…having that many people thinking about the same thing, believing the same thing? I think it’s powerful enough to make it real.”

An inexplicable chill ran down Jack’s spine.

“…that’s…that’s insane….” he breathed, shaking his head.

“Is it though?” Mark insisted, still trying to keep his voice low. “Think about it! Sam showed up how long ago? A few years ago, right?” Jack nodded mutely. “Same as Tim. Back then, they were the only real characters that had any sort of solidity on our channels! The fan base made Darkiplier and Antisepticeye, but it wasn’t until after we made them real that they started showing up in the real world. Weird stuff started happening around the time my friends and I had the idea for  _‘Who Killed Markiplier’_. It was after  _‘A Date With Markiplier’_ , and after  _‘Darkiplier vs Antisepticeye’_. Like, not long after the second one, actually. Which I thought was kind of weird at the time but…I mean I figured it was nothing. Except…I don’t think that’s the case anymore…”

Somebody dropped a plate back in the kitchen and both Jack and Mark jumped, two pairs of wide eyes flying toward the source of the disturbance. Jack let out a shaking breath and sank in his chair, letting out a quiet groan.

“God…the stress an’ fear is gonna kill me long before that  _glitch_ manages to do it.”

“Tell me about it,” Mark muttered. He was gripping the table’s edge so tightly his knuckles were white.

“Mark…?”

Tim’s voice sounded quietly from inside his carrier and Mark ducked a little so he could see into it.

“What’s up buddy?”

Jack tossed a glance over his shoulder to make sure nobody was looking their way.

“You okay?” Tim asked softly. “You sound scared.”

“Yeah of course I’m okay,” Mark murmured hurriedly. He rested his hand on the front edge of the carrier’s opening and Jack saw a tiny mitten-shaped hand poke out from the shadows. He smiled softly. “Don’t worry buddy. Ol’ Markimoo just got scared by a plate. Kinda silly, right?”

“Super silly.”

Tim giggled from his hiding spot and Mark shushed him softly, chuckling to himself a bit and looking around. Nobody was paying them any mind. After letting the pair have a few moments of comfort, Jack cleared his throat.

“What were you talking about before?” he asked in an undertone. Mark tore his eyes away from the pet carrier to look at Jack again. His smile slowly fell.

“…oh, right.” He kept one hand at the carrier’s opening as he continued his explanation. “I thought it was a little weird, how strange things started to happen around me after we made that Anti vs Dark video. An entire video dedicated, rather jokingly, to our dark alter egos, and then I start seeing weird things? Hearing things? But looking back it makes a lot of sense.” He jabbed his finger toward his phone, which was sitting on the table. “That’s when the fanbase got a spike in Dark and Anti interest. The amount of hype that video got was ridiculous.”

“It got a lot of attention from Septiplier shippers too,” Jack pointed out, snickering a little. Mark opened his mouth, closed it, and rolled his eyes.

“Okay, yeah, that too,” he agreed. He was trying not to smile. “But regardless. Anti and Dark were getting a lot more attention all of a sudden. Dark only showed up first because he’s been around for longer.”

“Okay, woah, wait,” Jack help up a hand. “I’m stoppin’ you right there. I brought my evil alter-ego into my videos for the entire month of October back in 2016.  _‘Say Goodbye’_  was his, like, big reveal. You didn’t start usin’ Dark in your videos until  _‘A Date With Markiplier’_.” He pointed at Mark. “An’ trust me, I know my shit, because I got a ton of messages from people askin’ if I was pissed about you copyin’ me.”

“Copying you?!” Mark spluttered. “What the hell? No! Nonono!” He scooted his chair closer to the table. “Okay. Rewind, back to the beginning of my entire YouTube career. I used to make these random creepy short videos for fun when I first started on YouTube, and that’s where the whole “Darkiplier” thing came from. Those videos were around waaaay before you even got your little boost from Felix.”

Jack laughed.

“Excuse me, are we makin’ jabs about  _channel popularity_ now?”

“Well –  _no_ , I only meant – Dark was a thing way before Anti was, okay? That’s all I’m saying!”

“But you just  _had_  to slip in that little “boost from Felix” comment didn’t ya?”

Jack was fighting off laughter now, snickering to himself, and he could see Mark was doing the same.

“Well sorry! Geez! Just trying to make a  _point_  sorry if I hurt your  _feelings_.” Mark scoffed and folded his arms over his chest, being dramatic, tossing his hair in a show of sass. “Whatever, man.”

“God, you’re such a drama queen!” Jack finally let out, laughing openly and leaning back in his chair. He heard a small giggle from Sam in his head too. “Fine, okay, point made. Moving on. Lord above, we’re horrible at staying on topic…”

“We’re the worst,” Mark agreed, chuckling a little. It built into a fuller laugh and he ruffled a hand through his hair, fixing his floof. “Sorry. Serious shit, right?”

“Yeah, heh,” Jack nodded, grinning. “Serious shit. Okay.”

“What I  _meant_ ,” Mark planted both palms on the table, “was that Darkiplier had more buildup than Anti did by the time Dark started showing up. Because Darkiplier spawned from years of me posting creepy content at random intervals, his creation was a slower progression than what you did with Anti. Dark’s early appearances weren’t planned the way your Halloween event was. But when I uploaded two videos within four months of each other that both features Dark as a main character, then I hinted at having plans for Friday the 13th, it really isn’t any surprise that the fanbase got a little hooked on the idea of him showing up again.”

“Okay, fair point,” Jack nodded. He sipped at his now-chilled coffee and made a face. He’d have to get another fresh cup soon. “So what about the...er...glitch?”

“I thought about that too,” Mark nodded. “That video you made for Halloween, where he killed you? That was his first appearance on your channel. That whole month was about him. So that more than makes up for the fact that he didn’t exist in your videos before then. And then you did nothing with him for a while, no hints or anything. Then we made  _‘Darkiplier vs Antisepticeye’_ , and even though it was a joke it gained a lot of attention. Then….” Mark paused and frowned. “What was it you did next?”

“It was two months between that one and  _‘Kill Jacksepticeye’_ ,” Jack muttered. “There weren’t any hints leading up to that either. I just thought it’d be a cool video, so I filmed it as if my doctor persona was trying to save me from A...Anti. Which…didn’t go well, because I died in the game.”

This entire conversation would have been rather hilarious in another context, in a context where Anti wasn’t a very real, very tangible threat. Jack probably would have laughed at the silliness of his own wording.

“Doctor…what’s his name?” Mark asked. “Sheeple?”

“Dr. Henrik Von Schneeplestien,” Jack smirked a little, putting on the accent for show. “Zhe very best surgeon, 100% real doctor. Everybody knows zhat he is vonderful at his job~” He winked.

Mark snorted.

“Oh my god, is that really how he acts?”

“Oh yeah,” Jack nodded, grinning a little, his mood lifting in the moment. “It’s a little ridiculous but, god, he’s fun to play.”

“What happened in the video?”

“Schneep didn’t save me, like I said,” Jack shrugged. “He got corrupted by Anti and…well, he didn’t die. I played it off like he did, but he didn’t, because I’m plannin’ on bringing him back. Then Anti said he’d be back again soon and that’s the last I did with him.”

“Really?” Mark frowned, looking confused. “But there’s all this hype on Tumblr right now, about Anti and Doctor…Sheep-guy.” Jack rolled his eyes at the name. “What’s that about?”

“Just fanbase hype, I guess,” Jack shrugged. “The game I was playing had dates in it – I mean in the  _actual gameplay_  – and people keep sayin’ things like… “Ohhh, it’s March 5th, that’s the day Jack died in the game, ohhhh he must be plannin’ something–” …but I didn’t even pay attention to those dates honestly.” He chuckled a little, scratching at the back of his head. “I’ve been messin’ with people though, because of it. There was this whole ‘WHERE IS DOCTOR SCHNEEP’ meme goin’ ‘round, so I kept making references to doctors in my videos. Figured it’d be fun to mess with the community a little.”

The Irishman was grinning all the while, more than just enjoying the fact that he was setting his own community on fire and pouring gasoline over the flames.

“That’s what did it.”

“…hm?” Jack brought his focus back to center and found Mark chewing on his thumb with that same thoughtful look on his face, the one that Jack was beginning to associate with deep, complex problem solving. “What did what?”

“That…that theory hype. The anniversary of your ‘death’,” he made air quotes. Something occurred to him in that moment and his entire expression changed, his eyes widening and his mouth dropping open in a gasp. “OH! Ohohoh! And Sam! #SamLives! Oh, my god, how did I not see that before…?”

“What th’ hell are you on about now?” Jack asked flatly, suddenly very aware of the little eyeball who was shifting in his hoodie pocket.

“People were already hyped about Anti before Sam showed up in your video, right?” Mark said, gesturing wildly with his hands. “Right??”

“Right, yes,” Jack stammered out quickly. “What about it?”

“And then Sam’s there, and suddenly Sam  _exists_ , and #SamLives goes trending and –”

And suddenly Jack caught on, his own eyes widening almost comically.

“Oh my god.”

_“See???”_

“Oh my  _god!”_  Jack clutched at his hair with both hands, the revelation leaving his mind whirling. “People believed that Sam was real, so they started to wonder–”

“If Anti couldn’t be real too!” Mark finished for him, leaning so far forward in his seat it was a wonder he hadn’t fallen out of it. “People always want the egos - the personas - whatever, our  _characters_  to really exist so they can meet them. And despite all logic pointing toward them being fictional–”

“There’s enough belief there and enough  _people_  with that belief to make it  _real_ and – holy shit, I accidentally used YouTube to bring a demon to life.”

“…okay, yes, that’s probably true, but – but still! Dude!  _DUDE!_ This is insanely cool! Horrifying and terrifying and fucking  _insane_  but also  _so fucking cool!”_

“Oh Gooood…” Jack dropped his face into his hands and let out a muffle grumble. “…fuck my life. We’re talkin’ about some demon-glitch-bitch who wants ta kill me an’ my best friend thinks it’s cool.”

“Hey, woah, I didn’t say it wasn’t bad,” Mark quickly corrected. “It’s pretty bad! It’s…really, really bad. But–” He glanced around, then leaned forward and lowered his voice. “But Jack – Seán – we’re talking about something  _impossible_ here. Something that can’t be explained away by science, even with all the logic we’ve managed to attach to it. These characters shouldn’t even exist, but somehow they  _do_. Tell me that doesn’t at least sound a  _little_  bit amazing to you?”

Jack didn’t deign to reply, instead letting out another muffle groan and rubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands. After a long moment of silence he sighed and pushed away from the table, standing up and holding out his hand to Mark.

“...I should call my Ma. I texted her earlier but…I just...I wanna hear her voice.”

Mark watched him for a few seconds before nodding. He dug around in his pockets and brought out Jack’s phone, which he’d been holding onto since they left the apartment. He held it out for Jack to take and there was a brief moment, a very brief and very tense moment, during which neither of them was sure if the Irishman would actually grab the phone. Jack’s hand was shaking a little, his mouth pressed into a thin line, his expression stiff. Then he plucked it from Mark’s hand before he could change his mind.

Technology, it seemed, was becoming a newfound fear of his, and not one he thought would ever exist for him. His life was technology. His livelihood and his income spawned from technology…but so too had his newfound greatest fear. His greatest threat.

Jack swallowed thickly, nodded to Mark with a shaking smile, and stepped just outside the cafe to make the call. His back pressed against the cool brick of the building and he let his head fall back against the wall, eyes closed and phone held to his ear with a still-shaking hand. All the while Sam sat curled up in his pocket and gentle soothing waves of thoughts and comfort crossed through their mental link. Jack took a breath.

“Ma? Hey...y-yeah...yeah, I’m fine. What? No, nothing happened...I just miss you. I love you too…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before anybody starts yelling at me in the comments for my inaccuracy, YES I'm aware that Jack's channel currently has 19.7 Million Subscribers at the moment. Lol...I've been keeping an eye on it and I've been counting down to the big 20, so I'm very aware! ^^ I'm posting these chapters here on Ao3, after having originally started sharing them on Tumblr over two months ago. That's why the updates have been so frequent up until this point; eight chapters are already complete. When I wrote this originally, his channel was still sitting at 18 Million and he had NOT started posting any videos of or relating to the Egopocalypse that happened in the spring/early summer.
> 
> If you pay close attention to the dialogue, Jack has mentioned that he has "plans" for the Egos in the future, but he hasn't done anything with it yet...and that's because this story takes place prior to that explosion of content that began with Schneep's "Back From Vacation" Instagram post. That has not happened yet in this fic. That's not to say it won't be mentioned at some point... ;)
> 
> (And he hasn't played D:BH yet either at this point in the timeline, which SUCKS because I can't REFERENCE IT and it's DRIVING ME NUTS because I LOVE that game!)
> 
> Either way, here’s the pseudo-explanation for why Anti is coming to life. Same with Sam and Tim and…well. You get the idea. :3 Hopefully it makes sense, and hopefully it’s not too long-winded. Critiques welcome!


	8. Bump In The Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack remembers something from a while ago; he gets scared by a noise in the night.

##  _October 24th, 2015_

Jack had finished recording for the day, and he was more than ready to head to bed. A yawn escaped him and he stretched both arms over his head, arching his back against his desk chair. He felt a few joints pop as he did so. Oof…he’d been sitting for too long. Maybe it was time to invest in one of those standing desks…?

The Irishman stood and ruffled his hair - vibrant green, which was a very recent change for him - to try and get rid of the dent left by his headphones. He took his time in turning off his equipment and shutting everything down before leaving the room. It had been a good recording day. He’d managed to finish Fran Bow today as well, and holy hell if that hadn’t been a good game. He already knew he was going to miss playing it. A soft smile graced his features and he strolled down the hall toward the bathroom, scratching the back of his head. Yeah. Fran was fun. He hoped he got the chance to play another game he could do voices for. Maybe for Undertale? That was one he’d been looking at starting soon too…

A noise from his bedroom made him pause outside the open door, his eyes flicking between the bedroom’s handle and the closed bathroom door further down the hall. What was that…?

The noise didn’t repeat, so Jack ducked his head into his bedroom and turned on the light, frowning. Blue eyes searched the now-illuminated space…and…oh. He rolled his eyes. There was a pile of Sams that he usually kept at the corner of his dresser, stacked up in front of the mirror above his sock drawer. They were from fans, from his community, all sent to him from all over the world. It always made him smile to see them and it made him want more and more to try and go to a convention, so he could meet people face-to-face. He hadn't been to many yet.

Anyway, he normally kept the Sam pile stacked on the corner of his dresser, but at the moment most of them were on the floor. Not that it surprised him. They were all round, so if one toppled, it was basically expected that a whole bunch of them would roll off the edge too. Ah well. Jack padded across the room in socked feet and crouched to pick them up, stacking them in his arms one by one, standing once he’d gather them all. He dumped them onto the dresser again with the intent of - maybe - straightening them in the morning. Then he turned to the door, ready to leave it at that.

Which he would have done…if it weren’t for the fact that he saw something move out of the corner of his eye.

Jack paused mid-step and glanced over his shoulder again, more tense than before. What was that? He narrowed his eyes at the pile of Sams…and that’s when he saw it. One of the Sams  _moved_. Jack blinked and his breath hitched. What the hell…? He crouched in front of the dresser and he stared at the one he thought had moved. It was about the size of a normal eye, maybe a little bigger…and it was almost shiny. Not plush, like the rest.

Jack blinked.

Sam blinked back.

“fUCKIN’ JAYSUS–“

In his haste to scramble back from the dresser, Jack tripped over his own feet and ended up sprawling backwards across his bedroom floor. He shuffled backward until his back was pressed against the front of his nightstand with the knob from the drawer digging into his shoulder blade. What. The fuck. What the  _fuck_. What the FUCK?!

_‘Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry—!’_

Jack was breathing heavily and his eyes were wide as saucers…but the tiny, scared voice he heard in the back of his mind made him pause. It was unfamiliar yet familiar all at once, unknown but a friend. He swallowed thickly and sat up a little, shifting to his knees.

“…h-hello?”

A small squeak sounded from the other side of the room and Jack saw the Sam pile twitch. He took a deep breath. Jack had an odd feeling that he knew exactly what was going on, as ridiculous as it sounded in his head. This…this was absolutely impossible, but at the same time…it was the only thing that made sense. He stood up slowly.

“Sam?”

It felt stupid, saying it out loud. He was talking to a pile of plushies, why should he expect a response? But then…

_’J-Jack?’_

Jack took another, shaking breath and inched forward across the bedroom. Sam - real, living Sam - was sitting between a giant Sam plush the size of a basketball, and a few smaller ones that had been hand-knitted by fans. He was shaking where he sat, his optic nerve - tail? - curled around his front as if to protect himself. His eye - pupil? Iris? He was an eye - was wide and it was clear that he was scared, nervous.

Sam looked just as scared as Jack felt, if not more so.

“Y-Yeah,” Jack breathed, nodding. “Yeah. Jack, that’s…that’s me…” He took a few more steps closer to the dresser.

Sam squeaked again and wiggled backward across the dresser’s surface, only unable to go very far because of the giant plush behind him. Jack gasped softly and shook his head, a sudden protectiveness surging through him.

“No…no no no, it’s okay, I’m sorry!” He held up his hands and stopped right in front of the dresser. He crouched until he was more at eye-level - literally - with Sam. “Sorry buddy. Did I…scare ya?”

Sam blinked up at him - how the hell did he blink without having eyelids? - and seemed to nod. The little eyeball had yet to stop shaking. He stared at Jack for a long moment, neither of them saying a word, both of them watching the other. It was Sam who broke the silence.

_‘…not mad?’_

Jack was still trying not to think too hard on the fact that  _he was hearing a voice in the back of his head_  and instead just shook his head, a soft smile playing across his lips.

“No, o’ course not,” he spoke softly. A quiet chuckle left him. “Why would I be mad?”

 _‘You…shouted.’_  The words sounded whispered in the back of his mind and Sam hid behind his tail. Optic nerve? …tail. Jack decided it was a tail. Definitely. That made it cuter.

“Well ya did scare the ever-livin’ shite out o’ me,” Jack admitted with a sheepish smile. He rested his chin on his arms on the edge of the dresser. “Can’t say I’ve ever seen somethin’ like you before.” A pause. “…and I still can’t decide if I’m dreamin’ or not.”

A small, almost childlike giggle came to life in his mind and he couldn’t help the affectionate chuckle that left him at the sound. Sam peeked out from beneath his tail, his expression seeming more cheerful than before, if not a little nervous still. (How did an eyeball show emotions? It was so strange to watch…it was like his iris and pupil moved in a way that they shouldn’t, like they were his sole form of facial expression and they morphed to match his emotions. It was weird as fuck…and so damn cool.)

 _‘If you’re dreaming then so am I,’_  Sam giggled. He seemed to slowly become more comfortable and he let his tail drop away from his ‘face’. Pupil? Iris.

“That’s exactly what dream-Sam would say,” Jack teased. Teasing and joking. His default.

While it wasn’t the best way to face a problem, it sure made him feel a hell of a lot more comfortable in the face of such an uncertain situation. He glanced toward the still-open door, then back to Sam. What would Sam do if he left to brush his teeth? Would he even still be here at all? Or would this all turn out to be some hallucination brought on by his sleep-deprived and caffeine-fueled state of mind…?

_‘Jack…?’_

“Hm?” Jack blinked his thoughts away and dragged his eyes back to Sam, who kept glancing up at him and away again with a nervous look in his eye. “What’s up?”

_‘Can I…sleep with you, on the bed? I’m scared…’_

And, shit, if that wasn’t the most adorable and precious thing he’d heard in his life. His heart melted and an adoring smile flickered to life on his face. Forget brushing his teeth. One night without clean teeth wouldn’t kill him.

“Of course you can,” Jack nodded, and after a moment’s uncertainty he reached toward Sam. The little eye shrank in on himself nervously, and Jack instantly paused in his motions. He thought about it…then he turned his hand over, palm up. And he waited. He didn’t move, didn’t breath. Sam eyed his hand with uncertainty at first. Jack could almost feel his apprehension, his nervousness…or maybe he really  _could_  feel it? It was the same feeling he got when Sam was talking to him, a little nudge in the back of his mind. Jack didn’t have long to ponder it however, because as soon as he felt it, it was gone again. Sam jumped lightly onto Jack’s palm - eyeballs could jump? Who knew? - and he wrapped his tail around one of Jack’s fingers, holding on.

Sam felt almost as one might expect a sentient eyeball to feel, Jack supposed. Smooth, almost soft. Not slimy though. Just…smooth. Like he was holding a baby. A very green, very tiny baby shaped like a ping pong ball.

…yeah, great metaphor Jack. You should definitely give up YouTube to become an author. Definitely.

But beyond that, Sam was surprisingly warm. It was almost comforting, and as Jack carefully carried the little eyeball over to his bed he couldn’t help but wonder why he had even been scared of the little guy in the first place. Come on, it was  _Sam_  he was talking about here. He’d never pictured Sam as anything other than friendly and sweet…so why would the real deal be any different?

Forget the fact that Sam shouldn’t even exist at all, because Jack was still wholly convinced that this was just a very realistic dream.

Resigning himself to sleeping in his t-shirt and boxers, Jack tipped Sam onto the other pillow and shucked off his jeans, slipping into bed and flicking off the lights. He felt Sam bounce across the covers a few times before snuggling in near his chest…and as Jack closed his eyes he could have sworn he heard the little eyeball purring.

What a weird dream.

  

##  __

 

When Jack awoke the next morning, it was to glass breaking somewhere in the apartment. He sat bolt-upright on the bed, eyes flying wide and pulse racing. What the hell…? His gaze flickered rapidly around the room, taking in the scene. The Sam pile on his dresser was still in disarray from last night, but a quick search of his bed didn’t offer him any proof that Sam himself had ever been there. The little eyeball was gone, and for a brief, relieving moment Jack could almost convince himself that it had all been a very realistic, very  _strange_ dream.

Almost.

Except for the fact that not too long after he had been awoken by shattering glass, a small, distant voice had started murmuring in the back of his mind in a quick, panicked tone.

_‘Oh no, oh no, oh no…!’_

Jack swallowed thickly. Either this was a very long and very convincing dream…or what he had witnessed last night had been far from fiction. His eyes fell on the barely-opened bedroom door and they remained there, locked on the sliver of light between door and frame. Wake up. Wake  _up,_ Jack. He had to wake up…

The Irishman reached across his own body with a shaking hand to pinch at his arm.

The fact that he could feel the pain from it didn’t lessen his fears whatsoever.

Jack took one breath, then another. Sam’s voice in the back of his head was still distant and equally panicked. Obviously something had happened out there…so Jack dragged himself out of bed and shuffled across the bedroom to figure out what had been broken. It was more of an afterthought than anything else that had him stepping into his slippers. Just in case. The hallway beyond his bedroom was illuminated by white ceiling lights, lights that he only now realized he had never turned off last night. He made his way down the hall and turned left at the door to his recording room, passing it by in favor of heading toward the main part of the apartment. The hallway opened out into the living room, and beyond that was a half-wall and a doorway that led to the kitchen.

The kitchen. That’s where Sam’s voice was coming from, Jack realized, because as he drew closer to the doorway the small voice in the back of his head grew slowly in volume, just like it would if Sam had been speaking aloud. God, this was still so strange…

“Sam?”

A squeak sounded from somewhere in the kitchen - an actual squeak, not one in his mind - and Jack ducked through the doorway, looking around. Broken glass sparkled against the edge of the counter and the kitchen floor, the remains of what Jack could easily make out as a glass from the cupboard above the counter. Blue eyes raised slowly until he spotted Sam.

The little eyeball was hiding just barely out of sight on the bottom shelf of the cupboard, his tail tucked around himself and his entire being shaking. He had his eye closed tightly and he looked so very scared. Jack didn’t say anything for a moment.

“…Sam? What happened? You okay, buddy?”

_‘Sorry sorry sorry sorry–’_

“Hey, woah, Sam. Calm down!” Jack stepped carefully over the majority of the glass and reached up, gently lifting Sam out of the cupboard and cradling the little eyeball close to his chest. It was almost automatic, but at the same time he was a little nervous. He didn’t know how to handle the little guy just yet. How gentle did he have to be? Would he hurt Sam if he wasn’t careful? Sam squeaked at being picked up, but he didn’t seem hurt. Just…scared. He buried his ‘face’ into the blue and grey fabric of Jack’s t-shirt, hiding.

“What th’ hell were you tryin’ to do?” Jack asked, glancing at what remained of his glassware. “Those things are heavy for ya. You could’ve gotten hurt!”

_‘I’m sorry, I didn’t…d-didn’t mean to break it…just wanted water…’_

“Nah, it’s fine, I have more glasses. But you – wait. Water?” Jack asked stupidly. He stared down at Sam’s shaking form for a moment. “Ye mean…to drink?”

_‘Uh-huh.’_

“But you don’t have a mouth.”

The words sounded idiotic leaving his mouth. But really, could you blame him? How the hell did an eyeball drink water?

_‘I don’t…um…need a mouth.’_

“…uh…” Jack blinked blankly at Sam, then sighed. Okay. Sure. Whatever. Sam existed, and that was insane, so why the hell would he need a mouth? He didn’t need a mouth to  _talk_ , he’d made that  _quite_  apparent already. “…yeah, sure. Hang on…”

Jack reached up into the cupboard and pushed a few things aside, pulling out a small plastic bowl instead. Just in case. He filled it most of the way one-handedly and stepped over the broken glass again, sitting the bowl down on a part of the counter that  _wasn’t_  littered with sparkling debris. Sam perked up and shifted in Jack’s hold, peering over the edge of Jack’s hand with a wide eye. He looked back at Jack with something akin to wonder in his gaze, as though Jack helping him was an absolutely magical moment.

‘Thank you!’

If Jack hadn’t already fallen into total adoration when it came to his odd little eyeball son, those two words would have finally tipped him over the edge. He chuckled and carefully set Sam on the counter beside the bowl.

“‘Course, bud. No problem.” He smiled softly. “Now stay away from the broken glass, alright? I’ll get it all cleaned up. Don’t want ya hurtin’ yourself, right?”

Sam giggled. Cute kid.

The glass didn’t take long to clean up, not really. It was only a cup. Jack figured Sam had been trying to get it out of the cupboard and it had fallen. How he had even gotten up there was a mystery to Jack, but he could ask about that later. For now he was still processing the fact that Sam was definitely very real, and definitely  _sitting two feet away on his kitchen counter_. Jack leaned the broom against his sink and let his eyes linger on Sam for a moment, the little eyeball splashing happily in the plastic bowl.

How was it possible that Sam even existed? Sam was a fictional character, an imaginary, personified version of his own infected eye from childhood. Sam wasn’t even named until after Jack had been doing YouTube for a few years. It was realistically  _impossible_.

Sam wiggled in the bowl, and Jack now realized that half the water was gone from the container. How…? He paid more attention, and this time he noticed that every so often Sam would close his eye and it looked almost like the little eyeball was taking a breath…then the water would go down a little bit.

“How’re you doin’ that?” he asked, more bluntly than he meant to. Sam blinked his eye open and spun around in the water to look up at Jack.

_‘Doing what?’_

“Drinking…sorta.”

 _‘Oh, um…’_  Sam blinked and looked down at the water he was sitting in. He was quiet for a moment, thinking, then he looked back up at Jack.  _‘I don’t really know. Kinda like…um…a sponge, I think?’_

“A sponge.” A smile twitched at the corner of his lips. “Maybe your name should’ve been Sam Septicsponge instead.”

Sam giggled in the back of Jack’s mind and the YouTuber found himself chuckling as well despite himself. A sponge. So Sam basically absorbed water in order to drink it. That was so fucking cool…and so fucking  _weird_.

It was official. He was gonna need coffee for this.

Oddly enough, going about his usual morning routine with Sam around…wasn’t that strange or different. He made his coffee and some breakfast and sat down to watch some television, all the while thumbing through his social media to catch up on what he’d missed while he was asleep. Sam had hopped up onto his shoulder to go along with him when he left the kitchen, and the little eyeball just ended up curled up on the couch beside Jack while he ate his food. At one point a single Cheerio fell off his spoon onto the tabletop and Sam had perked up, curiosity getting the best of him as he bounced up onto the table. He poked at it with his tail and rolled around it, eyeing it from all sides, then Jack watched in odd fascination while Sam “ate” it. The little eyeball got right up close to the piece of cereal and rolled over it, and it sort of…disintegrated and faded into the green surface of Sam’s…eye. And it was gone. Eaten, apparently.

Jack had to force himself to stop staring after that happened.

Recording was almost the same as before, except now there was a green eyeball sitting on his desk beside his keyboard and beside another fan-made version of Sam that he kept there for fun. Jack had to work a little harder than usual to keep his focus on the game in front of him, especially when he was hearing occasional reactions from Sam in the back of his head. At first he was almost worried that people would suspect something was up, that he wasn’t quite as into his recording as usual…but he brushed it off. It was Trollface Quest. It was a goofy little game, and if anybody  _did_  think he was acting out of the ordinary, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal, would it?

At some point between recording Trollface Quest and starting up Undertale for the first time, Jack noticed a bit of silence in the room that hadn’t been there before. It took him a moment to realize what the difference was.

Sam. Sam was fast asleep on the corner of the desk, his tail curled around him and his eye closed. Despite himself, Jack felt a small, affectionate smile find its way to his face.

At the start of all of this - in the moment of panic last night, when Jack had seen Sam come to life for the first time - he had been so scared, so panicked. So downright  _terrified_. But now, only half a day later…he was beginning to think that he shouldn’t let himself worry. He shouldn’t let himself be so frightened. This was  _Sam_ , after all. Sam, who he had created himself…Sam, who he had always pictured to be a friend of his. Sam wouldn’t hurt him. He never could. The poor little guy had been so scared when he’d first shown up too, as though he thought Jack might throw him out or try to get rid of him. And he was depending on Jack, now.

Having Sam in his life, Jack realized, would be a lot like having a pet, and a lot like having a kid. Sam felt like something in-between the two. A familiar, his mind supplied. A friend he could count on no matter what.

Jack took off his headphones and stood up from his seat, slipped around the blue curtain he had hung up for recording and crossed the room. He picked up the shirt that was still lying there in a crumpled heap from - what - two days ago? - and brought it back to the desk. It only took him a few seconds to wad it up into something akin to a nest, and when he moved Sam off of the hard desk surface and onto the more comfortable bundle of fabric, he heard Sam let out a little contented sigh in the back of his mind.

Yeah…yeah, this could work. This could be really, really good for him, for both of them.

Five minutes later found Jack with his headphones on and his recording in progress, and when the screen appeared for him to name his character in Undertale, he only had to glance at the little nest on the corner of his desk to know what name he would choose.

‘Sam.’

##  __

##  _Present Day_

Outside the cafe, Jack hit ‘end’ on his phone screen and tucked it into his pocket with a shaking hand, having just finished his call with his mother. He took a slow breath and closed his eyes, focussing on the feeling of Sam’s tail brushing against his fingers from inside his hoodie pocket, focussing on his calming connection in the back of his mind. Sam had been a constant in his life for going on two years now. The thought that the same thing that brought something so pure and happy into his life, could also create something as horrible as Anti…? He shuddered and pushed the thought away. Sam was different. Sam was his friend, his companion. Sam was family.

The Irishman collected himself and stepped back into the cafe, his eyes already seeking out Mark at their table. The other YouTuber looked up from Tim’s pet carrier the moment he saw Jack approaching.

“Want me to hold onto your phone still?”

“…y-yeah. Yeah, actually…that…thanks…” Jack couldn’t get the phone out of his hand quick enough. His breathing and heart rate only began to settle back down to normal once the device was out of sight in Mark’s pocket. He closed his eyes and his free hand tightened into a fist against the tabletop.

“Take a breath, Seán,” Mark said calmly, evenly, a smile in his words. “You did good. How’s your mom?”

“She’s–” Jack broke off and forced himself to breath. Just...breath. Ma. Think about her, not about– “Sh-She’s…” He cleared his throat, forced his fist to uncurl. The action made him wince, his neck still sore from what Anti had– “...she’s good. I told her I missed her, told her to say hi ta Gizmo for me.”

“Did you tell her what happened?”

“Eh…” Jack shrugged sheepishly. “Not...exactly. She hasn’t seen the stream, an’ I warned her not to watch it. I don’t want her seein’ that. She doesn’t watch my videos anyway, but still. Better ta warn her away. An’ it’s not like...not like I can jus’ tell her about my evil alter-ego. I doubt she’d believe me anyway.” A mirthless huff of laughter escaped him. “A few years ago, if anyone had told me I’d be in this situation...shite. I’d call ‘em mad...but I s’ppose after Sam...it’s easier to believe impossible things now, yeah?” He chuckled weakly, and Mark let out a knowing hum.

“Mhm...yeah, I guess so.” A pause. “Have you talked to Robin?”

Jack’s head jerked up, his brow furrowed in confusion.

“Not since before the–” The stream. He cleared his throat with a wince. If Mark was suggesting he make another phone call...frankly, he wasn’t sure he had that in him today. “...d-didn’t you talk to him?”

“Well yeah,” Mark nodded, shrugging as he slipped some crackers to Tim. He glanced up to Jack again with a gently pointed look. “But I didn’t tell him the details of what happened, remember? I didn’t tell him what’s really been going on. I think you should do that yourself.”

Jack swallowed, the action catching on a lump in his throat. Tell...Robin? Well, sure, Robin needed to know eventually but...but couldn’t it wait? Or...or better yet, couldn’t Robin just figure it out from the clip on the stream? Or twitter posts, or YouTube comments, or - or–

“You do know you eventually have to tell him everything that’s been happening, right?” Mark’s voice cut through some of his rapidfire thoughts, and Jack flicked his eyes upward toward his friend for the briefest of moments before fixating on the tabletop. “And I mean  _ everything _ . He’s your closest friend on this side of the world, and your editor. Might not be my place to say so, but he deserves to hear the full truth from  _ you _ , not draw conclusions from some fanpost on Twitter...or secondhand rumors from another YouTuber.”

“I know,” Jack nodded stiffly, running his free hand through his already-unruly hair while his other continued to seek comfort from just knowing Sam was nearby. The eyeball nuzzled up against his palm inside the hoodie pocket. “I know, I know he does, I  _ know _ I should tell ‘im but…” He made a pained expression and his fingertips ghosted across the bruised skin of his neck. “...but how do I…how do I explain any of this? How do I apologize for lyin’ to him and hiding all this from him? I...I trusted him with Sam, I should have trusted him with  _ this _ . And - and - and  _ beyond _ that–”   
  
It was more than just keeping secrets from his friend. It was more than just not wanting to use his phone right now. It was more than that, because the mere thought of having to explain everything...of having to verbally repeat what had happened in his recording room, what had been happening for weeks...it felt like he would be reliving the moment again. He’d been trying so hard to avoid even  _ thinking _ about what had happened in too much detail. Explaining all of it,  _ everything _ , to Robin–   
  
The Irishman’s thoughts were a loud and frantic blur, a quiet panic settling into his chest, just like it had that morning when Mark had brought up the events of the stream. His knee was bouncing beneath the table and his hand - the one not fixated on keeping contact with Sam - had found an imperfection in the table’s surface, his fingers fidgeting and his nails picking at the odd little crack there.   
  
“...beyond that,” he continued hoarsely, “how do I tell him my evil alter-ego came to life and attempted to...to k-kill me, live on camera in front of thousands of people? How do I  _ explain _ that? How do I – god, the reason I hid it from him in the f-first place, was ‘cause tellin’ somebody else what was h-happening would...it would’ve made it so much more  _ r-real _ . But then - then the stream happened, and...fuck, Mark. How do I–”   


Jack’s voice broke and he ducked his head, fighting back tears he didn’t know were welling in his eyes. He heard Mark’s chair scuff against the cafe floor and felt a warm presence near his right side. He didn’t dare look up.

“I won’t make you tell Robin the truth if you really don’t want to,” Mark told him, and Jack saw the taller man crouch down beside his chair out of the corner of his eye. He felt a warm hand on his shoulder. “But you should try. Maybe not right now, but soon. Robin should be in the loop about all this. I mean, c’mon man, if I tried to keep something like this from Amy or Kathryn - shit. I don’t think I could do it.” It was quiet for a moment, and Jack was vaguely aware of the fact that many people had left since he’d gone out to make his phone call. “I can try and help explain it to him if you want. I’m literally going through the exact same bullshit right now. Minus the attempts on my life, but you know what I mean.”

“You’d do that?” Jack asked, glancing to the side to catch Mark’s gaze. The American’s expression was warm and reassuring, just like his tone of voice, and Jack couldn’t help but feel at least a little hopeful thanks to his friend. Mark smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling with the motion.

“Hell yeah I’d do that,” Mark nodded. “But you’ve gotta promise me something.”

“What?”

“I wanna see Sam fly.”

And Jack was giggling, the laughter echoed by Sam in the back of his mind. Leave it to Mark to turn a serious situation into something funny and lighthearted.

“Heh...sure. It’s a deal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here, ladies and gentlemen, is the final chapter that I had pre-written! The feedback I've gotten on this story has made me absolutely giddy, and I keep getting good (and bad) ideas for where it might go in the future! Chapter 9 is in the works as we speak, and I might have that finished in the next few days if things go according to plan. Keep an eye out for it; and to everyone who has enjoyed the story thus far, thank you for reading!
> 
> Please let me know if you see anything that needs fixing, and if you have theories about where I'm planning on taking this don't be afraid to bring them up. I'm always curious to see what people think might happen from here on out. :3c


	9. Spaceballs and Nightlights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A movie night...it's the perfect way to unwind after a day of stress. But even Mark knows it's a false sense of peace that can only last until the movie ends, or until they hit pause.
> 
> Plans are laid, beds are made, and Jack might be a bit afraid.
> 
> In other words: Just a couple of dudes bein' bros, a couple of guys bein' dudes.

It was late at night by the time Jack and Mark returned to the Irishman’s apartment, their familiars in tow. Tim had fallen asleep in his carrier on the way home and Sam, while not quite down for the count just yet, was definitely less chatty and less active then he had been earlier. The pair of YouTubers were sitting on Jack’s couch watching a movie.

(Not on cable, and not on Netflix or Hulu either. Mark had helped him disconnect his television from the internet for the time being, but Jack still had a DVD player set up and a decent collection of films to choose from.)

“Spaceballs is a damn classic of a film, and nobody can convince me otherwise,” Mark grinned. His sock-clad feet were kicked up on the coffee table and Tim was dozing in his lap.

Jack snorted, a beer in hand. He brought it to his lips while he watched the characters on screen “comb the desert” for the runaway Princess Vespa and her rescuers. Literal combing, involving giant combs as tall as the troops who were using them.

“Oh, totally,” he agreed readily. “The whole thing is so quotable.”

“Lone Starr!” Mark recited dramatically. “I am your father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommate!”

“What does that make us?” Jack retorted in continuation of the dialogue.

Then, in unison, both knowing the scene by heart:

“Absolutely nothing!”

They fell into laughter, Jack’s bright and boisterous voice coming out louder than Mark’s deeper giggles. The Irishman ended up coughing a little at the end of it, taking another drink from his bottle to soothe the roughness in his throat.

“Fuckin’ hell it’s been a while since I’ve watched this,” Jack chuckled softly once he’d recovered himself.

His voice was still hoarse from what Anti had done to him during the stream, but it wasn’t as bad as it had been that first night. There was an undertone of roughness lacing his words and his breathing sounded more like wheezing if he was really worked up. He could tell it would be a few days before his voice returned to its usual state of full volume and bright energy. Surely his audience wouldn’t mind though, Jack mused. A sore throat wasn’t uncommon with how much he used it on a daily basis. Afterall he had done quieter Let’s Plays in the past for the same reason…

Jack’s smile faded. Recording. He hadn’t even thought about it since yesterday before the stream. He would need to record  _something_  soon, wouldn’t he? Even if it was a “Hey guys! I’m not dead! Don’t freak out!” video, the community deserved some sort of proof, some sort of comfort after the way he had left the stream. Jack tensed and chewed on his bottom lip, brow furrowed and fingers nervously drumming against the neck of his beer bottle.

The thought of going back in that room, back in front of that camera, back in front of his computer where Anti had appeared before–

“Jack? You alright man?”

Mark’s concern was evident without Jack even having to look up from his drink.

“…I need to record more videos.”

The words were quiet, uncertain, as though he wasn’t quite sure if he should say it aloud.

“What, you mean  _now?”_ Mark turned in his seat to stare at Jack. His expression was unidentifiable, somewhere between confused and concerned with a hint of bemusement thrown into the mix. Jack only caught a glance of the look on his friend’s face before locking his eyes on his beer again, shaking his head a little.

“Well - no. Not  _right_  now. I’m too fuckin’ tired to do anythin’ else today.” He drummed his fingers against the glass bottle in his hands once more, a familiar rhythm that he couldn’t quite identify himself even though he was certain it was one he’d played on the drums before. A soft sigh escaped him.

“Mark, I can’t just cut off contact with my community,” he explained as evenly as he could. “Any other time I’ve had an Anti video go up, I’ve posted a video either later that day or the day after so nobody freaks out. And I know,” he interrupted Mark as he went to open his mouth, “I  _know_  this time is different. This time was  _real_. But the community needs to know I’m not–” Jack broke off, unable to finish the sentence the way that he’d been intending to.

Not dead.

“You want them to know you’re okay.” Mark’s tone was one of understanding, if not still a little concerned. Jack nodded. He heard Mark let out a slow breath and heard the clink of glass on wood; Mark had set his drink on the coffee table. The movie continued playing in the background, and for a moment Jack’s focus tuned into the dialogue.

_“Yogurt. Yogurt. I hate Yogurt. Even with strawberries…”_

Jack snorted out a half-hearted, huffed laugh and reached for the remote, pausing it mid-scene. He tossed it back onto the coffee table with a light clatter of plastic on wood.

“…yeah,” he finally responded, drawing his eyes up to meet his friend’s searching gaze. “Yeah, they need to know I’m alright. I just - hell, I almost want to keep recording some games so people don’t think anything is wrong.”

“Robin’s got a few lined up, you know.”

Jack blinked at that, the comment being so unexpected it threw him for a loop.

“He – wait, what??”

Mark actually looked a little sheepish. He shrugged and smiled and looked away, ruffling his hair a little as he did so.

“I’ve had your phone all day, Seán,” he said in way of explanation. “Robin kept texting asking if you were alright and I figured it’d be alright to respond for you.”

“Th’ hell did you tell him?”

Jack put his own drink aside now, turning sideways on the couch and tucking one leg under him so he could face Mark fully.

“Well he said he saw the stream, so he clearly knows about Anti now!” Mark spluttered. “So I just – don’t give me that look! I didn’t tell him about anything he didn’t already know! I just told him you were alive and pretty shaken up. He asked if you wanted him to upload anything today and - well I probably could’ve asked you, but I told him you were taking a day to recover and that it was up to him for now. He just said he’d keep editing what he had for now and said to get back to him tomorrow.”

Jack stared at Mark in utter disbelief, not saying a word. Mark made a wild gesture with his hands.

“Okay I probably should’ve asked first, yeah! But - look, you’re basically petrified of technology right now, so I didn’t want to make you talk to him yourself today, and I figured - that’s what I would do if I was in your shoes, so–”

“Mark, shut the fuck up.” Jack shook his head. “I could fuckin’ kiss you right now.”

“Please don’t. Septiplier doesn’t need any more fuel for the fire.”

Jack punched the American in the arm.

“I don’t mean literally, asshole,” Jack retorted, and despite his best efforts to stop himself, he ended up smiling like an idiot. “You’re amazing. D’you know that?  _Thank you._  Holy shit.”

“Do I know that I’m amazing?” Mark parroted back, still rubbing at his arm where Jack had ‘punched’ him. “Yes, in fact, I do. And such amazingness is not free, so in exchange for such a service to your life and its improvement, a large donation can be made to–”

Mark was cut off rather abruptly by a pillow to his face, being wielded by a grinning Irishman who felt a lot less stressed now than he had only moments prior.

“Oh, shut up!” he stifled a laugh, then stifled a cough, bringing his sleeve up to cover his mouth. He swallowed thickly and shook his head at Mark’s antics.

“In all seriousness, Seán, it’s nothing,” Mark smiled, clutching the pillow Jack had flung his way. “You’re dealing with some serious shit right now. It’s the least I could do.” He set the pillow aside and carefully scooped Tim up from where he had started to stir in Mark’s lap, his little blue eyes blinking slowly in sleepy confusion. Mark was careful in his movements as he stood and moved his little buddy over to the armchair, where Sam had fallen asleep not too long ago. The minute the tiny box was comfortable his eyes drooped again and he drifted back to sleep.

Jack watched the small pair for a long moment, a soft, adoring smile falling across his features. Sam had never had a friend before. Jack was his closest companion, his family, but…it wasn’t the same. Jack was the equivalent of Sam’s caretaker, his pseudo-dad. The little eyeball didn’t have anybody like him that he could play with or interact with. Nobody  _existed_  like him…or so Jack had thought, before Mark had shown up with Tim in tow. Tim was the friend that Sam had needed. Tim was just as unbelievable as Sam, just as lonely, just as adorable and friendly, and it was really no surprise that the two had hit it off from the beginning. Jack only hoped that they could spend as much time together as possible before Mark left for America, whenever that would be.

“…you’re serious about wanting to film something, right?” Mark asked, breaking Jack from his thoughts. The Irishman slowly dragged his gaze away from the pair of familiars to see Mark watching him with that same, indistinct expression from before in his eyes. Concerned, curious, and bemused.

“Totally serious,” Jack agreed. “They deserve something, even if it’s…not the full truth.”

“What, are you gonna tell them it was a prank?” Mark asked incredulously. He sat on the edge of the coffee table and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “Are you gonna say the whole Anti thing was just another Ego video, and sorry that you scared everybody?”

“Oh, god no!” Jack’s eyes went wide and he shook his head rapidly. “Fuck, I’m not suicidal. If I outright say that Anti’s not real he’ll fuckin’ murder my ass! No…” He ran both hands through his hair, weaving his fingers together and letting his palms rest at the back of his head. He shook his head again, looking away in thought. “I mean I’m not gonna lie to everybody, but I’m not gonna outright tell the truth either. If I come out and say  _‘Guess what, guys? Anti’s real! He totally tried to kill me! Look, here’s the bruises!’_  then either some parents are gonna get pissed, or – well, even worse–”

Jack’s expression turned a little strained and he met Mark’s eyes.

“If he’s really powered by belief, then Anti might get even stronger, wouldn’t he?”

“Shit. Yeah, you’re probably right.”

Mark dragged his hand across his mouth, falling into thought himself. The room was quiet for a long moment, and there was a tension there that Jack was fairly certain had never fully left in the first place.

“Are you sure you’ll be okay to do this?” Mark asked him softly. He searched Jack’s expression for something, anything, that would tell him otherwise. “You could barely call your mom today.”

“God, I hope I can,” Jack breathed. “Fuckin’ hell – it’s gonna be harder than that. It’ll be so, so much harder. I’ll be back in the recording room, back in front of the camera, back in front of the computer again. I haven’t been in there since Anti–”

He sucked in a shaking breath all of a sudden, curling in on himself, and Mark instinctively reached out to put a grounding hand on Jack’s shoulder.

“I know.” Mark’s voice was as smooth and calming as ever, the deep tones helping to sooth Jack’s panic before it had even begun to build. “That’s what I mean. I know you need to do this, but I also know it won’t be easy for you. You’re going back into the lion’s den, technically speaking.”

“Tell me about it,” Jack muttered, folding his arms over his chest and curling forward toward his friend. “It’s gonna be a fuckin’ nightmare.”

“…you know what?”

Jack looked up then, seeing a bright expression spreading across Mark’s face. He blinked.

“What?”

“This time is gonna be different.” Mark grinned triumphantly before continuing: “I’m gonna be in the room with you.”

“You…really?” Jack found himself smiling softly too, a brilliant hope blooming in his chest. “You’d do that?”

“Hell yeah!” Mark nodded. “It’s not like it’s some major inconvenience or something, Jack, I’m literally gonna be sitting in the same room as you. That’s about it. But it’ll be you, and me, and Sam and Tim. All four of us. And I don’t know about you, but I can count, and I’m pretty sure we outnumber him.”

“Who would win?” Jack quipped, his own attitude brightening with how infectious Mark’s enthusiasm was. “Four giggly boys or one glitchy bitch?”

“Four tough gigglers, that’s who!”

“Pfft, oh fuck off!” Jack chuckled. “Alright. Alright, fine, that doesn’t sound too bad.”

There was a moment’s pause, and then:

“Thanks Markimoo.”

“No problem Jackaboy.”

 

 

Sleeping arrangements hadn’t really been thought out at all, not until both Jack and Mark decided they needed to get to bed. While it was true that there was a guest room - a really simple spare room with a full size bed, nothing too fancy - Jack found himself reluctant to stay in any room alone for very long. He couldn’t bring himself to ask, but he was more than grateful when Mark was the one to offer that they bunk together in Jack's room. Two pillows, one air mattress, and a heaping pile of blankets later, and Mark had managed to construct himself a sleeping spot on the floor. The American had dubbed his creation “surprisingly cozy”, though Jack found himself offering to take the floor so his friend and guest was more comfortable.

Mark, of course, declined vehemently.

The bedroom door was kept firmly shut and a nightlight was plugged in across the room. With the security of a closed door and a dim bulb, it didn’t take very long for both boys to find sleep alongside their familiars. For a few hours, everything was peaceful.

 

 

The arrangements seemed well and all, at least in theory. Jack wasn’t alone and Mark was comfortable enough. But at some point in the middle of the night Mark woke up to a voice in his head and movement across the room.

_‘Mark!’_

The American blinked sleep out of his eyes and crunched up his face in confusion, rolling over to face the bed.

“Sam…?” he mumbled, sitting up groggily. He dragged a hand through his hair with a yawn and ruffled the “floof” a little. Brown eyes blinked slowly, sleepily, still trying to regain full functionality in Mark’s barely-awake state. He squinted across the room to try and make out Jack’s blurry form without his glasses on.

“…n-no…ngh…”

Quiet, distressed sounds from Jack’s side of the room brought Mark to full attentiveness quickly. His breath hitched.

“Jack?” he spoke up again, louder and more assertive this time. “What’s up, man?”

Jack didn’t appear to have heard him, still shifting beneath his covers and making strained noises of discomfort. Mark could hear the Irishman’s breathing quickening and increasing in intensity, wheezing breaths leaving him as he tossed and turned in bed.

_‘Mark you gotta help! I can’t wake him up!’_

A small green blob was shaking in the corner of Mark’s vision, the little eyeball sitting on top of the nightstand beside Jack’s bed. But Mark didn’t even need to hear Sam’s pleading to know Jack needed his help.

Mark kicked off his blankets and stumbled to his feet, one hand groping for his glasses on the dresser as he went. He shoved the frames onto his face and Jack finally came into focus. The other YouTuber was pale - paler than usual, that is - and he was drenched in a cold sweat. He’d managed to simultaneously free himself from the majority of his sheets while also getting himself hopelessly tangled in them. Dark brown hair clung to his forehead and one of his hands - the one that wasn’t tugging desperately at his bedding - was at his own throat, grasping and clawing at something that wasn’t there.

“No…nonono…s-stop it stop it  _stop it–”_

“Jack!” Mark clambered onto the mattress and reached out for Jack’s wrist, slowly prying his hand away from his already-damaged neck. “Jack, c’mon man, it’s just a nightmare. Snap out of it.”

He gripped Jack’s shoulder with his free hand to shake him awake, and the reaction was instantaneous.

“N-No! Get OFF!  _GET AWAY!”_

Jack struggled vehemently against the weak grip Mark had on him, his hand - the one Mark was still gripping the wrist of - curling into a tight fist. He tried, rather frantically, to yank himself free.

Mark winced. A minute feeling of guilt found its way into the back of his mind, an ounce of regret at having to restrain his friend like this when he was clearly terrified of something only he could see, but he knew that if he didn’t then Jack may very well hurt himself in his panic. So instead of letting go and giving in, Mark held Jack’s clawing hand further out of reach before drawing his other hand back.

“Sorry ‘bout this, Jack,” he muttered, more to himself than anybody else, then slapped the Irishman clean across the face.

Jack jolted awake, his eyes flying wide in shock, and he sat up so fast that Mark had to dodge out of the way to avoid a head-on collision. Jack was still breathing harshly and a high-strung panic was evident in his eyes and his frantic movements, in the way he immediately started scrambling back away from Mark until his back was pressed flat against the headboard of the bed. All the while he continued to try and tug his arm free from Mark’s loose grip.

“Stop it… _s-stop_ …lemme  _go_ –”

“ _Seán._ ” Mark kept his voice level and his eyes locked on his panicking friend. “It’s me. It’s Mark.”

Finally, recognition seemed to dawn in Jack’s eyes…and he slowly stopped struggling. Blue eyes blinked sluggishly and stared through the near-darkness in strained confusion.

“…Mark?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s me.” Mark let out a soft breath of relief. At long last, he let Jack’s wrist go and dropped into a more comfortable position next to his friend. “Shit, you scared me. Are you alright?”

Jack swallowed thickly and looked around at the barely lit bedroom, brow furrowed. He was still tense and his breathing was still quicker than average, but even that seemed to be settling the longer they sat there.

“I…y-yeah. Holy shit…”

As though finally realizing that it was just them in the room, that he wasn’t in any real danger, Jack deflated against the headboard with a low, shaking breath. He scrubbed both hands over his face and let out a muffled groan.

“Fuck Anti.” The words were muted beneath his palms but the frustrated undertone to the words was evident. “ _Fuck_  Anti, and fuck  _me_  for fuckin’ putting him in my videos…”

“Must’ve been a pretty bad nightmare,” Mark murmured. He continued to watch his friend with a worried expression, his gaze falling on Jack’s neck. The bruises were still there, the skin now a dark purple-and-black pattern that Mark could clearly see was in the shape of a hand and fingers. New, red lines had appeared there too though, long scratches that didn’t even break the skin, the result of Jack clawing at his own neck in his nightmare-induced panic.

Mark found it a little hard to swallow as he dragged his eyes away from the spot.

“You don’t even want to know,” Jack grumbled.

“I might.”

Jack let his hands drop into his lap and leveled Mark with an incredulous look.

“D’you really?” he asked.

“Well–” Mark shrugged, the action a little lopsided. “–not so much that I wanna know the dirty details, but more like…if you need to talk about it, I’m willing to listen.”

A small, huffed breath left Jack - the equivalent of a humorless laugh - and he shook his head.

“Nah. ‘S nothing new.” It was his turn to shrug, wrapping his arms around himself as he did so. “Just reliving a memory.”

Ah. The stream. Not wanting to press any further, Mark just nodded in understanding.

It had been over twenty-four hours since the livestream had happened, along with whatever kind of hell Jack had been put through by his digital demon of a doppelganger. Over twenty-four hours…but not much longer than that. Mark had watched his best friend break down into a panic no less than three times since arriving here in Brighton, and he was sure there had been moments he hadn’t seen, instances both before and during his stay that Jack wouldn’t ever bring up to him. Jack was strong, stronger - Mark thought - than he gave himself credit for. He himself would be just as affected if their situations were flipped. The fact that Jack was also so concerned for his community, so caring of them that he wanted to combat his own present fears to make sure they knew everything was alright? It spoke volumes about the kind of person he was.

“Well if you need to talk about it,” Mark offered softly, “you know I’m here. I may not be a therapist but I’ve got shoulders and I’ve got hands and I’ve got arms, so that’s pretty useful.”

“…what?”

Jack’s confusion took the place of some of the strain that had been in his eyes a moment before, and Mark gave himself a mental pat on the back. He fought to keep a straight face and pulled on a slightly dramatic version of his “serious” voice.

“If you need arms to hug you, or a hand to hold, or a shoulder to cry on, I have all three. So that’s pretty damn impressive for one guy to have–”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Mark…”

“What? It  _is_  pretty impressive. There are some guys who don’t have hands, or don’t have arms, or don’t even have shoulders, so the fact that I still have all three–”

“Shut up!” Jack chuckled softly and buried his face in his hands again, his shoulders shaking for a much more positive reason than they had been before. “Fuckin’ hell, how does Amy live with you?”

“She lives a very giggly and happy life, that’s how,” Mark grinned, feeling accomplished now that it was clear he’d managed to brighten Jack’s mood.

“Well she’s dating a giggly bitch.” Jack’s grin was an exhausted one, but no less happy. “Giggly is in the couple’s prerequisites with you.”

“That’s probably true. I never checked the fine print before making her sign the Markiplier Dating Contract though.”

“I don’t think I want to know what else might be in that contract.”

“Eh, nothing too harmful. Probably. Might involve whips and chains.”

“You dirty bastard,” Jack shook his head with a tired smirk.

Mark winked and grinned cheekily at his, now much calmer, friend, then glanced over at his makeshift sleeping space on the floor. He sighed, scratched at the scruff along his jaw, and shifted so one of his legs was hanging off the bed.

“Are you alright to get back to sleep?” he asked with a warm smile. He eyed the way Jack was still positioned, having cornered himself against the headboard and curled up there as if to protect himself. He had yet to move from that spot. “No offense, but I think you need the rest.”

“I–”

The Irishman tensed up a little at the prospect. He ducked to avoid Mark’s searching eyes and chewed at his bottom lip.

“…I dunno. I don’t really fancy havin’ another nightmare like that again, stupid as it sounds.”

“That doesn’t sound stupid at all.”

Mark said it with such sincerity that Jack found himself looking up again, both pairs of exhausted eyes locking in the near-darkness. Not for the first time, Jack found himself feeling evermore grateful to have Mark here, to have a friend like him that he could rely on, especially right now. His  _best_  friend.

“Do you want me to sleep up here, in the bed with you?” Mark offered. At Jack’s silence, he went on with a smirk: “I mean, not to brag, but I’m a damn good cuddler. You can ask Amy and Chica. And Ethan. And probably Tyler, he’d agree with me too–”

“I’d like that, actually.”

Jack’s admission was quiet and a little embarrassed, but he smiled anyway and he finally stretched his legs out from where they had been tucked close to his chest since he’d woken up. He started to straighten out the tangled mass of sheets and blankets and scooted down the bed.

“Sorry if it’s weird,” Jack mumbled. “But it might help. With stopping another nightmare, I mean.”

“Hey, I offered!” Mark pointed a finger in Jack’s face, and the other YouTuber blinked and stared at the finger, then at Mark with an amused expression on his face. “It’s not weird. And even if it was, I’d be the one making it weird since I started it. So shut up and get comfy because I’m tired and we have recording to do tomorrow. Got it?”

“Heh, yeah,” Jack chuckled, slipping back under the covers and forcing himself to relax. “Got it.”

“Good.”

Mark tugged his glasses off and dropped them on the nightstand, then he burrowed into the blankets and scooted closer to Jack’s side of the bed. For a few precious moments, the room was quiet, the only sound being the steady breathing of the two human occupants in the room and the slight rustling of fabric as Sam snuggled into the bedding Mark had left on the floor with Tim. Mark’s eyes had drifted shut and he was beginning to let sleep’s haze pull him back under its spell…then Jack spoke up again, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Thanks, Mark.” He was quiet again for a few seconds before he continued, eyes still lingering on the blank ceiling above him. “I dunno how I would’ve made it through today if I didn’t have somebody here with me. An’ you’ve been a godsend, honestly. I can’t imagine anyone else who could’ve helped me through this as well as you’ve been doin’ so far.”

“Not even Robin?” Mark mumbled. He opened one eye to watch Jack’s profile.

“...well…” Jack sighed and turned onto his side to face his friend. “...nothin’ against Robin, but he’d be out o’ his depth wit’ all this. Ya know? He’s great, an’ a good friend, an’ he’d be supportive to all hell an’ gone if – well, if he knew…” Jack sighed a little at his own words, brow furrowing the slightest bit. “...but I don’t t’ink he’d be able to help me get my mind straight ‘bout all o’ this shite.” His accent was thick with sleep, his words coming out slightly harder to decipher. “It’s different wit’ you, though. You’ve got Egos an’ such o’ yer own an’ you  _ know _ what I’m dealin’ wit’. Not quite to th’ same extreme, but...well...Dark.”

Jack shrugged. The name itself was enough for Mark to understand, and he nodded subtly.

“So…yeah. You get it. An’ – hell – I’d know fuck-all ‘bout the “why” behind all o’ this if you hadn’t’ve had a t’eory ‘bout it ‘forehand. It really helps ta  _understand_ it all. Yeah?”

“Yeah…it does.”

“I guess - jus’ - shite,  _thank you_. T’ank ye, so damn  _much_. You didn’t have ta come out here, an’ you didn’t have ta deal wit’ my pile of nonsense, but you  _did_ an’…and it means a  _hell_  of a lot.”

Jack blinked rapidly, a shine appearing in his eyes that Mark could tell he was trying to hide. The American chuckled - a low, deep, gentle and familiar sound - and he reached out to draw his smaller friend against his chest in a one-armed hug. He pretended not to notice the damp patches Jack’s silent, grateful tears were leaving on his shirt.

“You don’t have to thank me for that, Seán,” Mark grinned through the darkness. “It’s what best friends are for.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here you go! It’s been a long time coming (or it has for those who have been waiting for this on Tumblr since the beginning lol) but here’s the next installment of the #SamLives series! (If you can't tell, I adore stories that have “FRIENDSHIP IS AMAZING AND POWERFUL AND SHOULD NEVER BE UNDERESTIMATED” as a key part of the plot, so…yup. Keep that in mind. It’s big here.)
> 
> Anti hasn’t shown his face in a few chapters, and that’s intentional. For one thing, this is literally the night after the stream, so even though it’s three chapters later not much time has passed. But beyond that…Anti’s not an idiot. He likes to mess with Jack and he can’t resist playing with the poor boy’s head, but he’s clever enough to know that there are more players on the board now…and that he has to factor that into whatever plan he might have.
> 
> I’ve gotten quite a few ideas from people’s responses to this since this whole thing began…so any new plot twists in the future? You can tooootally blame those on the other readers :3c


	10. Can I Please Have A Waffle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Breakfast is had, an announcement is made, and the video reaches a wider audience than either of them had intended.

“So...you show up, say you’re alive and well, and apologize for scaring people on the stream,” Mark was saying, running through his thought processes regarding Jack’s vlog plans. “You don’t outright say it was real, but you don’t say that it was purposely faked. Throw in a joke about losing your voice.”

Jack huffed out a breath with a smirk. Yeah, alright. Not a bad idea. He leaned back against the kitchen counter while he waited for his coffee.

“Then how about,” Mark looked up to Jack from his seat at the kitchen table, “to try and distract people from the stream, you don’t just make it about that.”

“What?” Jack raised his eyebrows and folded his arms over his chest. “What else would I make it about?”

“Me, obviously.”

Mark grinned up at him like an idiot, looking utterly too proud of himself for his own good.

“You.”

“Yeah!” Mark stabbed at a piece of waffle that was on the plate in front of him. He waved it around a little as he spoke. “I’m here, in Brighton, and clearly _not_ in California. I’ll have to let my community know at some point because I only have a limited number of videos to cover the gap, unless I start recording some stuff here. Which is totally an option.”

“Oh, hell yeah, as long as I’m not in there feel free to record whatever.” Jack shrugged and turned to the coffee machine, retrieving his now-finished dirty bean water.

“I just have to watch out for glitch demons, right?”

Mark was joking, teasing; it was obvious enough in his voice without even having to see the amused grin on his face, but that didn’t mean Jack was laughing. He levelled his friend with a halfhearted glare as he sat across from him at the table.

“Not funny.”

“Sorry.” Mark smiled sheepishly, his fork drooping a little in his grip.

Instead of eating the bite of waffle himself, he held it out toward Tim, who was sitting on the table near Mark’s plate with his eyes locked on the YouTuber’s food as though he’d never eaten before in his life. The little box let out a happy sound and grabbed the waffle chunk between his hands, taking bites out of it every so often. Jack could tell that Mark spoiled him.

“But anyway,” Mark continued, “we could make some kind of announcement. Tell people we’re doing some collabs and that I’m visiting for a while. That’d be distraction enough to at least get _some_ people’s focus off of Anti.”

Jack blew on his mug of coffee and took a sip, closing his eyes and letting the heat of it help soothe the ache in his throat. He let out a slow breath.

“...honestly it’s not a bad plan.”

“It’s a brilliant plan.”

“I wouldn’t necessarily say _brilliant_ , but…” Jack snickered behind his mug and took another sip. He almost deserved the affronted look he got in return.

“Excuse me, I’m a fucking genius, okay?” Mark sassed. “I was majoring in engineering before my YouTube career got off the ground!” He pressed his hand to his chest and pulled on a mock-tortured expression. “I could’ve been an engineer!”

“And I could’ve been in hotel management,” Jack retorted, grinning. “So what?”

_‘Jack?’_

Jack saw Sam bounce into the room and his smile softened, his eyes brightening a little.

“Heya Sam,” he greeted the little eyeball. “You hungry, buddy?”

_‘Mhm.’_

“Want some of my waffles?” Mark offered, turning around in his seat, all mentions of his shattered dreams of engineering seemingly forgotten. “I think I made way too many.”

“I told ya you shouldn’t’ve made eight of them.”

“Your toaster has four slots! I had to try it out!”

“Twice?”

“Yes! That’s how science experiments work.” Mark was waving his fork around again, and Tim’s eyes were following its path with rapt attention. “You’ve gotta test things out more than once, or you won’t get accurate data.”

 _‘I’d like a waffles please, mister Mark.’_ Sam’s cheerful comment effectively cut off Mark’s rant about “real science”, much to Jack’s amusement.

“You heard ‘im,” Jack smirked. “He’d like some of your waffles, mister Mark.”

“Well how could I possibly say no when he asked so nicely?”

There was a warm smile on Mark’s face, one that Jack had seen there before. It was one that Mark often wore when speaking to Tim, and now Sam as well. It was one that he wore the night before when they’d been talking after Jack’s nightmare. Jack had seen it, too, when Mark had called Amy yesterday afternoon to let her know his flight had landed safely and that he’d made it to Jack’s place alright. The smile was a caring one, a familial one. One that, Jack was sure, was associated with those in Mark’s life that he cared the most for. Family. Friends. Loved ones.

The fact that it was a smile he now shared with Sam...it was touching. Sam’s little bubble of family was getting just a little bit bigger, and Jack couldn’t help but smile softly from behind his coffee mug while he watched Mark separate out little chunks of waffles for both Tim and Sam to enjoy.

“Did you want some?” Mark offered across the table, looking up from the pair of familiars.

Jack eyed the waffles for a moment before making a face.

“...nah. I’ve got my coffee.” As if to emphasize this point he brought the mug to his lips and took a drink.

“But–” Mark’s brow furrowed a little. “You haven’t eaten anything. Last time you had a decent meal with yesterday at the cafe. And no, I’m not counting the banana you had for “dinner”.”

He made air quotes around the word.

“I had two!” Jack defended weakly. When Mark’s expression didn’t change he groaned and rubbed a hand over his face. “I’ll eat later, alright? After we’re done recordin’ that video. My stomach’s in fuckin’ knots just thinkin’ about going back into the recording room. I’d rather _not_ projectile vomit on my keyboard and camera.”

“Gross.” Mark made a face, but he didn’t look concerned anymore. “Yeah, I don’t blame you. We can go out and grab something away from the apartment again for lunch, if that helped before.”

“Oh, yes _please_.”

Jack was more than eager for whatever time he could get away from his computer. Anti hadn’t so much as made the lights flicker since the incident during the stream, but that didn’t make Jack feel any calmer being here.

 

 

If Jack had thought his nerves were bad when he was sitting in the kitchen, it was nothing compared to staring through the open doorway that led to his recording space. He’d pushed the door open almost five minutes ago to get everything set up and hadn’t taken a step since. His hands were clammy, his pulse had skyrocketed, and it seemed to be harder to breathe. A constricting feeling had settled around his lungs and throat and no matter how many time he’d told himself there was _nothing in the room right now_ , it didn’t ease his fears one bit.

_‘Jack?’_

Sam was settled on Jack’s shoulder, had been there since Jack had left the kitchen. Jack could feel his familiar’s concern in the back of his mind. He let out a shaking breath.

 _‘It’s okay to be scared.’_ Sam’s words, as ever, were pure and friendly and kind. _‘I’m kinda scared too. But he’s not here this time! And we’re going in together, right?’_

“R-Right.” Jack reached up to stroke the top of Sam’s “head”, the repeated motion helping to calm him.

“Hey, Jack, where’s the discs for this thing?” Mark’s voice called from the end of the hall. “It’s a pretty sweet Nerf gun.”

“Hm…?”

Jack was grateful for the distraction and he looked away from the door, sidestepping a little so he could see what Mark was holding. His eyes widened in surprise, some of his panic forgotten.

“...oh my god, where the hell did you find that?”

Mark shrugged.

“It was in a shopping bag in the bathroom closet, with a bunch of tea bags and easter candy.” He turned the gun over in his hands, examining it with a grin. “Pretty cool looking. I was looking for some makeup but found this instead.”

“That’s Chase’s gun,” Jack told him, slightly astonished at the sight of it. “I thought I lost that thing ages ago! I’ve been looking for a replacement online, for an Ego video, but apparently they don’t make ‘em anymore.”

“Chase?” Mark closed the bathroom door behind himself and brought it with him as he joined Jack by the recording room. “Is that an Ego? I don’t think I’m familiar with that one.”

“Chase Brody,” Jack shrugged. He saw Mark carrying something else, probably that makeup he’d been looking for, though Jack wasn’t quite sure why he’d needed it in the first place. “I did a video with him last year, a trickshot skit. Called it “Bro Average”...like a parody of Dude Perfect.”

“Oh my god, wait, I think I remember that!” Mark was grinning now. “The guy with the hat, right?”

“Heh, sure, the guy with the hat.” Jack found a smile working its way onto his face. “I’ve only ever done the one video with him though. That’s why I’ve been thinkin’ of bringing him back.”’

“Oh, cool.” Mark was quiet for a moment. Then: “...so where’s the discs?”

Jack snorted.

“Top left drawer of my dresser. Junk drawer. That’s the last place I saw ‘em.” He shrugged, careful not to knock off Sam. “Or whatever’s left of them, anyway.”

“Sweet! Be right back.” Mark turned to leave, turned back, and shoved something into Jack’s hands. “Hold this.”

While Mark was off fetching Nerf discs, Jack looked down at what he’d been handed. It was a makeup tube, one that Jack vaguely remembered his sister leaving behind during her last visit only because it had been sitting on the bathroom counter for a while. Some of the contents had already been used, and for some reason Jack had a memory of his dear sis complaining about how it didn’t last long enough then going out to buy a different brand. Something about changing the formula? Hell if he knew.

Before he could really delve into the memory, Mark was back, a victorious smile on his face and a ziplock of green foam disc in his hand.

“Why d’you need makeup?” Jack asked, eyebrow raised.

“It’s for you.”

“What?”

“You neck.”

...oh.

Jack’s free hand came up to brush against the bruised skin, wincing a little.

“Does it look bad–?”

“It doesn’t look totally gross yet, if that’s what you’re asking,” Mark chuckled. “Nah, I just figured you’d rather try and hide it if you’re gonna record a video. I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure saying you’re fine while sporting a more-than-noticeable hand-shaped bruise on your neck, doesn’t exactly scream “everybody stay calm”.”

“Fair enough.”

There was a pause, a moment of silence. Mark glanced between Jack and the recording room.

“So…” he nodded toward the door, still standing ajar. “...did you get everything set up?”

And as easily as Jack had managed to forget about it before, his earlier panic came crashing back into reality. His breath hitched and he tensed, eyes flickering toward the door.

“...not...exactly.”

 _‘It’s a scary place,’_ Sam explained, his voice quiet and a little nervous.

Jack could feel his familiar’s nervousness alongside his own, though the little eyeball’s fear wasn’t nearly to the same extreme that Jack’s was. That same suffocating tightness was back in his chest and his heart was pounding against his ribcage.

“Ah, c’mon,” Mark grinned and grabbed Jack by the elbow, half-dragging his friend through the door and guiding him towards the familiar green chair by the desk. “Don’t think about it too much. Nothing’s gonna happen, not with me and Sam and Tim–” Mark called out into the hall, “–hey Tim! You gonna join us in here?”

“Oh! Uh-huh!” Tim’s voice cropped up from somewhere else in the apartment, bright and cheerful and excited.

Jack vaguely registered the sound of a pencil clattering against a tabletop, and the sound of Tim jumping onto the floor with a soft ‘oof!’. But he wasn’t really paying much attention to it. He was tense, sitting stiffly on the edge of his chair with his eyes wide and his hands clutching his knees so tightly his knuckles had turned white. The room was the same - _exactly_ the same - as he’d left it when he’d ended the stream so abruptly two nights ago. His headphones were on the floor and his mouse was hanging off the desk by its cord; the cup of pencils he usually kept on the corner of the desk had been spilled across its surface, and a half-finished mug of coffee sat, cold, to the right of the keyboard.

_‘Jack?’_

At Sam’s voice, Jack closed his eyes and focussed inward. Sam was there, in the back of his mind, a constant source of comfort and support that never left him. Just knowing that his familiar was with him, that his little buddy was keeping his eye on things, helped more than he was willing to say. A wave of concern and warmth washed over the mental link and Jack smiled weakly. Sam was being braver than he was. Surely he could pull it together for one stupid video.

“Jack? You good, man?”

Jack opened his eyes, blinking rapidly, and saw Mark in the doorway carrying one of the chairs from the living room. He stared at it, realized which one it was, and snorted out a soft laugh.

“Oh my god. Of _course_ you picked the spinny chair.”

“Hell yeah I picked a spinny chair!” Mark grinned. “That’s the only kind I’ll accept in a recording session.”

“Pretty good motto to go by.”

They exchanged a grin - Jack’s a little more strained than Mark’s - then Jack forced himself to settle back into his own seat and turn it to face his computer. He cleared away the spilled writing utensils and scooped up his mouse and headphones, putting everything back in order before he set about booting up his computer. He didn’t remember turning it off after the stream...but he must have. Either that, or Mark had to have done so when he turned off Jack’s wifi the night before.

Whatever.

Jack started up his recording programs and turned on the camera behind his desk (God, why couldn’t his hands stop shaking…?), then spun his chair to face Mark. Mark, who was now lounging in the chair he’d brought in off to one side of the room, where Jack knew the camera wouldn’t spot him.

“...any...eh...any chance you were plannin’ on helping me with that makeup, Mark?”

Mark smirked.

“What? You don’t know how to do it yourself?”

“No,” Jack snickered weakly. He cleared his throat. Then in an attempt to lighten his own mood, he put on his sassy teen girl voice and pretended to flip his nonexistent hair over his shoulder. “I don’t need makeup! I’m beautiful just the way I am!”

“Have you tried looking in a mirror? Because I beg to differ–”

“Oh, fuck off!” Jack laughed and chucked a pencil at Mark’s head.

Mark responded by dodging it and aiming the now-loaded Nerf gun at Jack, letting loose a foam disc. The disc bounced off of Jack’s shoulder and roquochetted off at an odd angle, making Sam squeak and fly upwards into the air to avoid getting hit. He hovered there for a long moment, his tail wiggling a little behind him, then settled down onto Jack’s shoulder again once he was sure no more projectiles were headed his way.

“Hey, watch it!” Jack giggled a little, and the action was mimicked by Sam in the back of both YouTubers’ heads. “What’d Sam ever do to you?”

“Sorry, sorry!” Mark raised both hands in surrender, still clutching the Nerf gun. His lips twitched as he tried to reign in his smile. “I totally missed the mark. I was aiming for your face.”

“Pfft, oh, thanks, that makes me feel _sooo_ much better.” Jack rolled his eyes, his words dripping with sarcasm.

“You aimed for my head first!” Mark pointed out. “It’s only fair.”

“You started it! You insulted me!”

“Did I?” Mark feigned innocence, chocolate eyes widening and a hand coming up to press against his heart. “Me? Why would I ever do that?”

“You did! You did!” It was Tim who spoke up this time, bouncing on the spot on the carpet beside Mark’s chair. He giggled. “You said a mean thing.”

 _‘Very very mean,’_ Sam agreed, though his amusement was clear in the way he said it.

Mark’s jaw dropped.

“Are you seeing this?!” he gestured around the room. “Everyone’s ganging up on me!”

“Yeah, well, you deserve it,” Jack stuck his tongue out at the American, who hmphed and sank in his seat.

“Oh, shut up. Let me get this makeup on your neck and we can film this thing.”

 

 

_“Hey guys! Zombie-septiceye here, back from the dead. Heh.”_

_Jack scratched at the back of his head. If you were looking for it, a faint shadow could be seen on his neck, a darker patch that was only noticeable if you really, really looked. A pattern that was clearly discernible as a handprint...if you were the type to analyse video frames for longer than a few seconds._

_“No, I didn’t die, and I’m perfectly fine. I promise.”_

_Jack was smiling, the same brilliant smile he always wore...but he looked tired. A little bit of stress could be seen around his eyes, barely visible but there._

_“I hope the stream didn’t scare you all too much. Some of you might not have seen it yet, but that’s okay. It seemed to be making its rounds. Fair warning: it was pretty…” Jack’s eyes dropped to his desk, and he seemed to struggle to find the right words. “...erm...intense. So...sorry ‘bout that.”_

_His eyes seeked out the camera again, and he pulled that same genuine smile back onto his face, this time with a touch of apology in his gaze._

_“That definitely wasn’t how I planned on ending the stream, heh.” He chucked a little, then held up his hands. “But don’t worry! All’s good on my end. I’ve got a bit of a sore throat right now, but I’m feelin’ a lot better.”_

_He cleared his throat dramatically, then let out a practice scream, followed by an over-dramatic and very fake cough._

_“Yup. The scream machine is still workin’. I know, I usually post something sooner after Ant...er...Ego videos, but yesterday ended up being a hell of a lot crazier than I thought it would be. Robin’s been havin’ issues with editing on his end and we decided it’d be alright for me to take a day off.”_

_Something green flew across the screen behind Jack’s chair, making an audible ‘thwack’ against the opposite wall._

_“Fuckin’–” Jack spun in his chair and chucked a pen in the direction of where the green...thing...had come from. “I told ye to stop that! Shite…”_

_A quiet chuckle cropped up in the background, one that hadn’t come from Jack, and the Irishman let out a little bit of laughter in response._

_“Behave! I swear, it’s like talkin’ to a fuckin’ child…” He swivled back to the camera. “Anyway! I’m alive, I’m well, I’m as loud as ever, and–”_

_‘Thwack.’_

_A second green projectile, this one flying forward over Jack’s shoulder and landing somewhere below the camera’s view. The Irishman shot his hand out in front of him and swiped it up, holding it up for his “attacker” to see – it was a lime green foam disc, maybe an inch and a half across – and turning to speak over his shoulder again._

_“D’you want me to take that away from you?”_

_“No, Mom.”_

_The voice in the background was distant, too far from the mic to be picked up properly, but the deep, rapid laughter that followed the words was easily distinguishable to anyone who watched any of Jack’s Prop Hunt Collab videos._

_“I swear to Christ, Mark…”_

_Despite his scolding, Jack was grinning as he turned back to the camera._

_“You know what, screw it, we’re gonna skip to the other half of this video, because SOMEbody–” Jack chucked the green disc at the unseen marksman, who let out a loud ‘HEY!’ in protest, “–can’t stay fuckin’ quiet for longer ‘n ten seconds! By Jaysus!”_

_Jack slapped his hands down on his desk and took a dramatic breath._

_“Okay. So the surprise isn’t so much of a surprise anymore, but I’ve got a guest with me today. He showed up on my doorstep yesterday lookin’ like a lost puppy and I decided to keep him for a while. Dunno how long he’s stayin’ but – Mark’s here in Brighton! Say hi, Mark.”_

_A second person slid into view, rolling across the room in a wheeled chair and grinning brightly at the camera._

_“Hello everybody!” he waved a Nerf gun in the air (many of the viewers collectively gasped and squealed in excitement, instantly recognizing that gun for what it was) and scooted his chair closer to the desk, bumping Jack over a little so they both had room. “This was totally unplanned, so my apologies for not making an announcement.”_

_“By ‘totally unplanned’ you mean ‘Jack didn’t even know I was coming until I was knocking on his door’, right?” Jack chuckled._

_Mark spluttered and gestured wildly with his hands, waving the plastic weapon around as he did so._

_“Well – okay, we talked about me staying for a while to do some collabs! I just showed up early!”_

_“Two or three WEEKS early.”_

 

The banter was familiar, teasing, and a wonderful change from Jack’s last appearance on screen. For many, as they continued watching the announcement video, it brightened their day and brought a sense of excitement. For many, they couldn’t help but wonder what plans Jack and Mark had made for future videos. But for some...for very few...the video held a completely different meaning.

 

**“When did this video appear on the channel?”**

` “Two days, five hours, fourteen minutes, and seven seconds ago.”`

**“...interesting.”**

` “Should I update my current objective?”`

**“No...not yet.”**

“Se̯e̋ w̎h̀a̞t᷀ I mėa̔n?! H̘e̘’̗s c̫h̗e̢a͑t̬i͉n̼g̀! E̻v̤eͤr̠ si͒n̜c̄e̮ _h͌e͗_ s͋ḧo̐w͝ed̈́ u̠p, I have̘n'͟t̜ eve̎n̫ bēe̋n̚ ãb̖l᷆eͯ ṱoͭ g̉et͎ c̨l̈òs̠e!͘ H̱e's̱ d͇i̟sṫra͐c᷇ti̞nͤg̴ t̂h̃e͋m͂ f̺r̙oͭm̷ m̐e͗, a̝n̰d t̗h᷄eͧ l̏o͏n̓g̹e͋r᷇ it̙ g̛oe̅s̭ o͈n̵ t̚h̎e͊ l̗e̢s͇s᷉  _c̛O̕nͥt͞R͇o̓L͍_ I͚ h̫a᷊v̈́e᷊.Th̪i͠s̡ i̱s͙n’̞t̤ h̲ōw̰ I pla͑n͒n̫e͓d᷉ t̴h̨e̴ g̵àme̓ to g͙ô! Yo̺u̹ k̭nͅo̬w̎ t̉hat᷁ Ī’d r͓a͟tͅher̹ bͥȇ _a͇n᷅y᷅w̉h̛er̠ȇ_ e̵l̘s̻e̊ but he̍r̾ė,͆ b̐uͣt᷅ t̠h̶i̯s᷊ _f̥uc̜k᷉in͚’ ch̲ange̖s̭ t̊h̊ing̯s._ ”

 **“I’m more than aware of your...** **_opinion_ ** **of me. In fact I doubt it differs much from mine of you...perhaps one of the few things we can agree on.”**

A distorted scoff was the only response.

 **“ _H᷄oͦwe̤v̋e̼r͆_.”** Emphasis was put on the word, effectively cutting off whatever mockery had been coming his way. **“I may be interested in helping you play your little _game_. What exactly do you require from me?”**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woot! Back from vacation! I had this written before we even left, but I didn't get the chance to post it because I had yet to edit the damned thing. But here we are! While this isn't my favorite chapter, I'm still pretty happy with how it turned out. ^^
> 
> As always, critiques and comments are always welcome! Let me know if you spot spelling errors...god knows I'm not perfect lol.
> 
> And thanks for reading!
> 
> ~ Pixie


	11. Presenting Tonight's Cast of Characters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a call from Robin and a message to a mutual friend, things begin to get a lot more complicated than they were before.

Jack hadn’t been lying when he’d said that he and Mark were planning on doing some collabs. In the few days that followed the initial video, they recorded a good nine or ten videos worth of content each, most of it consisting of two-player games. (Being able to record one session for two channels had its perks.) Jack still hadn’t gotten over his wariness of technology in that time. He had to steel his nerves before starting every session, had to take a breath before hitting ‘record’. He found himself frequently checking his facecam on the monitor to make sure nobody was in the background, and every flicker, every stutter, every lag in whatever game he was playing made his hands tense and his breath hitch.

Today was no different. After spending a good five minutes mentally convincing himself that his computer mouse wasn’t about to come to life and strangle him, he and Mark dove head-first into a new game of “Sea of Thieves”. It was just the two of them this time, with no time to schedule a play time with Bob or Wade or Ethan. At the moment, Jack was trying to fend off skeletal attackers while his friend dug up the buried treasure.

“Shit! Fuck! Fuckin’ bastards!” He took another swipe at the nearest skeleton, cutting it down. Another attacker was quick to take its place. “Hah! That’ll teach ye not to mess wit’ ol’ Jackaboy.”

He pulled out a blunderbuss and took two shots straight through the newcomer’s chest.

“DIE BITCHES! How’s that chest comin’, Markerino?”

Mark, who Jack now realized had been oddly quiet the past few minutes, let out only a distracted hum in response. Jack turned his avatar to look at Mark’s rather voluptuous character, only to find him standing still over the half-buried treasure chest. Jack chuckled, a little bewildered.

“Mark? Th’ fuck are you doin’?” he took a shot at another skeleton. “Are ye just waiting for it to unbury itself or–”

_Thwack!_

The familiar-yet-unexpected sound made Jack jump, his heart pounding in his chest as he whipped his head around to stare at Mark. The other YouTuber had turned his seat away from the desk, Nerf gun in hand, aiming at the closed door with narrowed, focussed eyes.

What the fucking–

Jack swallowed thickly and took a slow breath, his panic ebbing away to make room for amused irritation. He swiped a small crocheted Sam from his desk and chucked it at the side of Mark’s head.

“Hey! What–?!”

“Don’t fuckin’ _scare_ me like that, shithead!” Jack shoved Mark’s shoulder playfully. “What th’ hell was that for?”

“Target practice.”

Mark’s grin was cheeky and a little mocking.

Jack blinked at him, slowly, fixing him with a look that clearly said _‘Are you fucking kidding me right now?’_ He snatched the Nerf gun from Mark’s hand with a barely-restrained chuckle and brandished it in the other’s face. Mark took a swipe at it, pouting and trying to take back his toy.

“Hey!”

It turned into a game of Keep Away, with Jack holding the Nerf gun high above his head and Mark practically falling out of his chair and climbing over Jack in his attempt to reach it.

“I’ll use _you_ fer target practice if you don’t–”

“Jack! Give that back, you asshole!"

“–get your head back in the game!” Jack suddenly whipped the Nerf gun back at Mark, who fumbled to catch it. “I’m _dyin’_ here!”

Mark clutched the gun tightly to his chest and retreated to the safety of his seat, pouting and hugging the toy as though Jack might attempt to steal it from him again. He stuck his tongue out childishly before turning back to his screen - and he stifled a laugh.

“Uh…” He carefully set his precious plastic weapon on the desk, out of Jack’s reach. “Not to alarm you, but I think we’re already dead.”

Jack’s focus snapped to his own screen, and sure enough, both he and Mark were now standing on the deck of a ghost ship, waiting their turn to return to the land of the living. He threw his hands in the air and flopped backwards in his chair.

“Fuckin’ DAMMIT all!” He sank in his seat with a groan, Mark’s deep giggles permeating the air around them both. “I blame you entirely for that.”

“Yeah...heh...yeah, that’s...that’s on me. Sorry, man…” Mark still hadn’t stopped giggling, his mood far too bright to be dimmed by a death in the game.

“I’m makin’ sure everyone knows it’s your fault,” Jack bemoaned from his slouched position. “I’m gonna make you buy me a fancy-ass tombstone, an’ put one o’ those shitty rhyming couplets on it…”

He held his hands out in front of him, pretending to frame the words.

“ _Here lies Jack_

_Just blame his friend_

_Whose Nerf gun brought_

_Their bitter end.”_

Mark’s only response was a slow golf clap while he pretended to be tearing up.

“Beautiful,” he told Jack, voice laced with false emotion. “Absolutely beautiful. You should’ve become a poet instead of a YouTuber. Clearly you were meant for greater things than video game commentary.”

Jack almost fell out of his chair in his attempt to chuck another Sam plush at Mark’s head.

 

 

“D’you think that cop really believed that nothing was wrong?” Jack asked Mark with a mutter later that evening.

Mark had already sent  out  the day’s raw videos from both him and Jack to  Robin and  Kathryn for editing, though only after doing a little bit of content cutting before passing them  along. There were certain things that had to be cut out from their recordings that really, really didn’t need to be shared with anyone beyond their immediate group. Not  yet.

“The guy from the other day?” Mark asked, looking up from his phone. “I dunno. I mean I don’t think he believed all the anonymous tips, anyway. He was trying not to crack a smile the whole time he was explaining stuff to us.”

Apparently, some of Jack’s fans had taken Anti’s appearance on the stream at face value. They had believed (rightfully so) that it was real, and when Jack went silent on all forms of social media for more than twenty-four hours after it had happened, people had started to panic. While nobody knew for sure where Jack lived, the local police station in Brighton had gotten call after call after call from concerned teens and young adults who all claimed that a YouTuber named Sean McLoughlin had almost been killed on a livestream. If it hadn’t been for the sheer number of phone calls and the video proof that looked almost too real to have been edited, Jack was sure the police would have ignored it.

But two days ago - three days after the stream itself - a police officer had come knocking on the apartment door asking if a Sean McLoughlin or a Jacksepticeye lived there.

After explaining - through stifled grinning and amused chuckles - that a lot of fans thought he had been hurt, Mark and Jack had tried to awkwardly laugh it off and explain that, no, it was just a video, and nobody had actually gotten hurt.

(Jack was wearing makeup on his neck again for recording, thank god, otherwise the bruises might have brought on some unwanted questions. As it was...)

“I dunno man.” Jack sighed deeply and scrubbed his hands over his face, sinking back on the couch. “I swear he kept lookin’ at my neck. I’m sure he watched the video for th’ sake of the calls. Probably checkin’ to see if I really got strangled.”

“Ah, quit worrying. I’m sure it’ll be fine.” Mark scrolled through Twitter again, reading a few more tweets before, “...and we’re _sure_ we don’t want to get the police involved?”

Jack leveled him with a blank stare.

“Do you _honestly_ think the _police_ are gonna know how to deal wit’ a computer virus of a demon that came to life from my YouTube channel? I mean WE barely know what we’re doing and we’re fully invested in the lore of it all!”

Mark stifled a laugh.

“Okay, yeah good point,” he admitted. He shook his head, eyes falling back to his phone gain. “Fully invested in the lore...god, we sound like we’re trying to solve Five Nights At Freddy’s conspiracies. That’s how complicated this whole mess has become. Frankly, if anyone overheard what we were talking about in the cafe that first day I showed up, they’d probably think–”

Jack jolted upright in his seat, eyes wide and expression one of stunned realization.

“Holy shit.” He grabbed Mark’s arm and shook him a little, his movements suddenly intense and a brilliant grin splitting his face in two. “Holy _shit!”_

“Holy shit what?” Mark gripped his phone a little tighter so it wouldn’t go flying out of his hands from Jack’s enthusiasm.

“Mark, you’re a fuckin’ _genius!”_

“Well - I mean, yeah, I thought we established that, but what the hell did I say?!”

Mark was rightfully very bewildered by his friend’s sudden change of mood. He gave Jack a quick once-over with his eyebrows raised, wondering if he should be concerned.

“Five Nights at Freddy’s!” Jack exclaimed. He looked far too excited and far too proud of himself for his own good.

“...Five Nights at–”

“Dude! Don’t you get it?” Jack leapt up off the couch, pacing, and Sam - who had been dozing in Jack’s hoodie pocket - poked his ‘face’ out with a sleepy blink, wondering what all the commotion was about. “This whole thing is too fuckin’ complicated right now, right? We don’t know what exactly Anti is, or how to stop him from comin’ back. He’s solid but he’s not. He’s made of glitches but - who the hell even knows what _that_ means.”

“Okay…?” Mark just watched the Irishman pace the room, his phone long forgotten in his lap. “Where are you going with this?”

“Anti doesn’t make sense!” Jack was grinning like an idiot. He stopped in his tracks to turn and face Mark. “We know _why_ he’s here but that only gets us so far! We need somebody who’s used to picking apart ridiculous bullshit to find the real answers, somebody who already kinda knows what’s going on.”

“Jack, you’ve lost me,” Mark said flatly. “Who are you talking about, Robin? Amy?”

“No!” Jack was talking with his hands, talking with his entire body, like he couldn’t contain all the energy that had built up inside him. “Five Nights at Freddy’s. Crazy timeline. Bullshit lore. There’s only one person I know who was able to tear that shit to pieces and make sense out of it.”

And then it hit Mark like a load of bricks, and he was on his feet too, his exclamation coming out as a loud and incredulous question in the same moment that Jack was busting out the same words.

“MatPat?!”

“MatPat!”

“Waitwaitwait, hold on–” Mark was trying to sort out his thoughts, pinching the bridge of his nose while he watched Jack rush around in a frantic search for his cell phone. Mark didn’t have it right now and Jack couldn’t quite remember where it had ended up. “What the hell do you mean Matt already knows what’s going on?”

“Well, okay, he doesn’t know about Anti,” Jack admitted, his ass in the air while he leaned over the armchair in the corner to see if his phone was plugged in back there. “He knows about Sam though.”

“He knows about Sam?!” Mark’s jaw dropped.

At this point, Sam had abandoned Jack’s pocket to hover a few steps behind the Irishman, watching him with quiet curiosity. At Mark’s question, Sam let out a happy little squeak and nodded, twirling through the air a little.

“Did you tell him before you told me?” Before Jack could even answer, Mark had continued: “But he posted a video like two weeks ago about how Sam couldn’t possibly exist!”

“Well, duh, he posted that _because_ he knows about Sam,” Jack rolled his eyes and shoved away from the armchair, detouring to the kitchen. He spoke up to be heard across the apartment. “He was tryin’ to throw people off. And I didn’t _tell_ him about Sam.” Jack returned to the living room, cell phone in hand and a sheepish smile on his face. “He...er...kinda found out on his own.”

“How?”

“Tacos and Rachel Ray.”

Mark didn’t know how to respond to that.

“I have no idea how to respond to that.”

“Look…” Jack huffed and came back over to Mark, sitting on the edge of the coffee table while his friend sank slowly back onto the couch. Sam settled onto his shoulder and nuzzled up against Jack’s cheek with a quiet purr. “Sam was sick, so I brought him with me for the taco-making contest. Matt was on my team. He bumped into me, I tripped, Sam almost fell out of my hood, and Matt saw him.”

“And he didn’t freak out?”

Jack’s lips twitched into a wry smile and he looked up from his phone.

“Oh, he freaked out, but not until later.”

“Let me get this straight.” Mark watched Jack carefully as he spoke. Jack nodded and went back to shakily tapping out a message to Matt. “Just so we’re both on the same page. Sam exists, clearly. Anti exists. You, me, Robin, and Matt know about Sam. You, me, and  _ maybe _ Robin know about Anti.”

“And Matt too now, sort of.”

“And Matt,” Mark agreed. “And Amy too, come to think of it. Is there  _ anybody else _ who knows  _ anything else _ , just in case we need to recruit people for a battle of the digital age?”

“Nope, nobody else. Don’t think so anyway,” Jack shook his head. He paused and looked thoughtful, setting his phone aside (looking relieved to get the thing out of his hands) and tapping his chin. “...though I probably should bring up that Anti mentioned being late for a date or something last time? What was the name...something...something Warfstache…?”

Mark looked like he might explode

_“WHAT?!”_

“Oh my _god!”_ Jack cackled, doubling over with laughter and trying not to slip off the edge of the coffee table he was sitting on. “Oh my _fucking god_ your _face!_ That was PRICELESS! You fuckin’ - _Haha!_ \- f-fuckin’ _believed–_ ” He could barely breathe he was laughing so hard, his laughter sounding a little wheezy.

Mark groaned and flopped backward across the couch, a low, pained chuckled escaping him.

”Oh, you absolutely piece of shit. Fuck you.”

“Y-Yeah, I - _heh_ \- I probably... _haha_...deserve that one…” Jack was grinning, wiping tears from his eyes.

Sam had bounced over to Mark to make sure he was okay and was now nestled on the American’s chest, Tim’s curious little eyes watching from the arm of the couch not even a foot away. The little box tumbled forward and landed right next to Mark’s head, patting his cheek softly in what Jack assumed was a comforting motion. Another low, rumbling laugh bubbled up from Mark’s chest.

“But no, to answer your question,” Jack continued once he could breathe again. “I think that’s everyone.”

“Good. Great. Excellent.”

Mark was absolutely done. Just...done.

“Ah, lighten up, Markimoo,” Jack snickered. “Consider it payback fer that Nerf scare.”

“Considering that you were implying that Warfstache is alive too, _and_ that he and your evil twin are getting it on–”

“Hey! I only said they went on a date!”

“–I’d say we’re far from even right now.”

“Oh, fuck off! That’s totally even!”

“And what if I tricked you into thinking your Dr. Schneep guy was alive and I caught him flirting with Dr. Iplier?”

“Oh, dude, no,” Jack groaned, laughing through it. “Nooo...I mean, yeah, Henrik totally would. He’d flirt with anything that moved. But hell no.”

“See my point?”

The living room was pleasantly quiet for a long moment, save for the little questioning squeaks Sam was making from his position on Mark’s chest. Then Mark heard the buzzing clatter of plastic against the coffee table. Jack’s phone was ringing, but on silent. Mark cracked open one eye to glance at Jack, who suddenly looked a lot more tense than he had a moment before.

“...you good, Jack?” he murmured, watching the other YouTuber. Jack nodded stiffly, looking a little pale. “Is it MatPat? He calling back already?”

Jack swallowed thickly.

“Nah. It’s...just Robin.”

“Answer it,” Mark encouraged him evenly. “Go ahead. We’re all in the room with you, it’ll be fine.”

Jack nodded, the motion a little jerky, and he reached over to press the ‘Answer’ button. He quickly put it on speaker and withdrew his hand as though he’d been burned. The phone stayed sitting on the table.

_ “Jack?” _

“Hey Robin,” Jack murmured.

Mark could see the way Jack started fidgeting the moment he heard Robin’s voice, saw his fingers tugging at the edges of his hoodie and saw the way his knee started bouncing rapidly. Like he had too much nervous energy, like it was trying to get out however it could.

_ “Hey! I just wanted to...you know. Check in,” _ Robin continued, a half-smile in his voice.  _ “I got the videos from Mark. Why didn’t you tell me he was planning on visiting the UK?” _

“That’s his fault,” Jack muttered, and a small smile made its way onto his face. “He didn’t fuckin’ tell  _ me _ he was stoppin’ by until he was on my doorstep. So blame him.”

_ “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.” _ Robin’s words were a touch humorous for a moment.  _ “Anyway...how’s everything going? How’s Sam?” _

“Sam’s great!” Jack’s grin became more genuine, and he giggled when Sam bounced over to sit beside the phone. He was wiggling on the spot in excitement. “He and Tim are gettin’ along famously. He’s been so damn happy, Robin, I wish you could see ‘em together.”

“You can thank me later,” Mark chimed in with a smirk.

_ “Is that Mark?” _ Robin asked.  _ “Am I on speaker?” _

“Oh! Yeah, you are. Sorry. Shoulda said.” Jack chuckled softly.

_ “No, it’s fine!” _ Robin laughed a little too.  _ “Hey Mark!” _

“Hey Robin!”

_ “How are you doing though, Jack?” _ Robin’s tone had turned concerned, more strained than before.  _ “And what the hell is going on with the whole Antisepticeye thing? I mean - I saw the stream. That–” _ A sigh crackled through the speaker.  _ “I know for a fact I didn’t edit that, and it looked…Jack, it looked way too real. What the hell was that? Are you okay?” _

Jack stiffened. He could feel Mark’s eyes on him, his look a knowing one. It had been five whole days since they had talked at the cafe, and while Jack had texted Robin back and forth a few times since then (in very brief interludes, as there were still moments Jack couldn’t even look at his own TV for fear of Anti jumping out of the dimmed pixels, let alone carry his phone in his pocket all day), not once had Jack brought up the livestream. Any time Robin asked about it Jack evaded his questions and changed the subject, or didn’t respond at all. He had been half-ghosting his friend and he knew it.

“Eh…” Jack cleared his throat and shrugged, though Robin couldn’t see it. “I’m fine.” He answered only half of the question. “A little worn out, but Mark an’ I have been really goin’ hard, knockin’ out tons of videos  _ now _ so we can get some free time to hang out later…”

_ “Seán.” _

And there it was, the gentle scolding that reminded Jack too much of his older brothers. Robin usually pulled that one out when Jack was working himself too hard or he hadn’t sent Robin his finished recordings yet. How Robin managed to make Jack feel like a misbehaving child every time he used it was a mystery to him...but it worked. Every damn time. Jack sighed and let out a quiet groan.

“I’ll tell you soon, I promise,” he whimpered. “I  _ promise _ I will, it’s - it’s just - I can’t–” He dragged a hand through his hair, and his gaze landed on Mark. The other YouTuber had sat up in the past few minutes and was leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees, his expression a searching one. He quirked an eyebrow at the Irishman.

“One second, Robin,” he said softly, reaching over to tap the ‘mute’ button on Jack’s phone. He watched his friend for a long moment before speaking. “Jack...I’m not gonna push you to talk to him, but - oh my god, man. It’s almost been a whole  _ week _ . The longer you wait, the more likely it’ll be for him to figure it out on his own. Or, worse, he’ll be hurt that you’re still keeping things from him. He already told you yesterday, people have been sending him tons of tweets and tumblr messages asking about you. Didn’t he tell you that some people wanted to know if you’re dead or not?”

Jack nodded stiffly, wincing.

“I told you I’d help you tell him the truth.” Mark smiled reassuringly. “I meant that, okay? And - hell, I can get Amy on the line, and we can have a big ol’ Sleepover Party Egos Theory Skype Call.”

Jack snorted out a nervous laugh, shaking his head in amusement. Sleepover…

“Only  _ you _ would see it as a “sleepover” opportunity, Mark.”

“What can I say?” Mark grinned cheekily and winked. “I’m a fully-fledged man-child.” His grin faded back to a soft, understanding smile and he tried to catch Jack’s eye. “Waddaya say? You up for it?”

“...I eh…” Jack stared at his hands, his fingers fiddling with the hem of his sweatshirt while he thought.

Was he ready to talk about what had happened yet? Would Robin even believe him? Would he freak out, or take it all in stride like he had with Sam? Jack didn’t want to cause a panic and he didn’t want to make this a bigger deal than it already was. He didn’t want to push into painful and uncomfortable territory but...it seemed a little unavoidable at this point. He had known that, eventually, he would have no choice  _ but _ to tell Robin - but he’d been trying to delay the inevitable. He’d been hoping beyond hope that this whole thing would blow over as though it had never happened and he wouldn’t have to even  _ think _ about the livestream or its implications or Anti’s “haunting” his videos ever again.

But Mark was right. The longer he waited, the worse it could get.

Jack sighed heavily. His hand was shaking when he reached for his phone, but he still pressed the ‘mute’ button to let Robin hear them again.

“Hey Robin,” he mumbled, to let her know he was back. “You there?”

_ “Still here, Jack.” _ The usual friendly patience was in his voice, colored with a touch of concern for his friend

It helped Jack with what he knew he had to do next.

“I...eh. D’you mind waitin’ a few minutes?” he asked, wringing his hands in his lap. “Mark’s gonna get Amy on a Skype call wit’ us, an’ we can all talk face-to-face, and I’ll...I’ll fill you in on what’s been, er, happenin’ in my part of the world.”

_ “Really?” _ Robin asked, sounding brighter.  _ “You’re actually going to tell me this time?” _

“I - yeah. Yeah, I am.” Jack took a breath. His nervousness was clear with every word that left his mouth. “I’ll tell you everything.”

“Wait!”

Mark’s outburst made Jack jump and his head shot up.

“What–”

“My smoothie! I totally forgot my smoothie!”

Jack stared, and he heard Robin snickering on the other end of the call.

“Your smoothie,” he repeated, his lips twitching into some semblance of a smile. “You mean the one from after dinner? From, like, two hours ago?”

“Yes, from after dinner!” Mark rocketed off the couch, skirting the coffee table and grabbing his rental car keys as he went to the door. “It’s still in the car. This is super serious.”

“Super serious?” Jack repeated. He watched Tim bounce off the couch and hop curiously around the room in pursuit of Mark, doing his best to keep up. “More serious than Serious Shit?”

“YES! MORE SERIOUS THAN THAT!” Mark, who almost stepped on Tim in his haste to get to the door, let out a rather undignified squeak and immediately crouched to the ground beside the tiny box. “Oh, I'm so sorry! Are you okay? Did I hurt you? C’mere, my little biscuit, let’s get you off the floor. I would neeeever want you to get hurt, I would neeeever step on you…”

“Oh my god, Mark, you’re such a  _ mom _ .”

“What? It’s not like you’re not the same way with Sam!”

At this, Jack chucked a pillow from the couch across the room, hitting Mark in the legs to avoid hitting Tim.

“Go get your fuckin’ smoothie!”

“Fine! I will!”

Mark flipped him off and pretended to storm out of the apartment, putting Tim on his shoulder and “slamming” the door shut (only to stop it at the last second to close it with a quiet click.) Jack shook his head with a smile. Only Mark.

_ “Hey...Jack?” _

“Hm?” Jack returned his attention to his phone, still sitting beside him on the coffee table. “What’s up?”

_ “I wanted to ask...you tried to tell me before. Anti is real, right?” _

“Yeah…” His answer was a tense one, his hands coming up to fiddle with the strings of his hoodie.

_ “Did…” _ Robin’s voice trailed off, and there was static in the speaker, like he had taken a breath.  _ “So...did he really hurt you? On the stream.” _

Jack swallowed thickly. He was suddenly very aware of the sore bruises on his throat, and he felt rather than saw Sam land lightly on his shoulder.

“What...eh…” He cleared his throat, and Sam nuzzled up against his jaw, little waves of reassurance and worry filtering into the back of his mind. “...w-what makes ye ask that?”

_ “I told you I was getting messages and asks,” _ Robin told him. He could hear footsteps in the background, movement. Like he was pacing.  _ “And I turned them off for now, because Mark said I should wait until you told me what was going on. Which I can respect. But...some of the messages – people are really worried about you, Jack. And I am too. I couldn’t help it. I kept going back to watch the end of the stream, and – damn. That entire thing - it was so intense. It...it looked like Anti was trying to…I mean, when he was...”  _ Robin trailed off.

Jack closed his eyes, his jaw clenching tightly. Oh. Hands shaking, Jack picked his phone up off the coffee table and took the call off speaker, holding the mobile to his ear and getting to his feet.

“When he was holdin’ me up against the...eh...th’ wall?” he asked hoarsely. His movements were stiff, his footing a little unsteady as he crossed the room to pick up the pillow he’d thrown at Mark. He squeezed the edge of it tightly in his hand, lingering there by the door.

_ “...yeah.” _ Robin took another deep breath on the other end of the line, and when he spoke again his voice was low and hoarse. Concerned.  _ “He – Jack, he was hurting you. Actually hurting you, not just - play-fighting, or acting for the camera. Wasn’t he?” _

Jack’s chest felt tight, his throat constricting from both the memory and his own emotions. He took a shaking breath and dropped the pillow into the armchair closest to him, his free hand coming up to rest against his opposite shoulder. By Sam. Sam’s tail trailed down and brushed against his fingers, helping to soothe some of the uneasiness that had begun to build inside him.

“N-No, that...that was. Um.” Real. It was real. He blinked rapidly and his grip tightened on his phone. “Yeah. It...he left bruises.”

Robin swore quietly on the other end of the line.

_ “Jack–” _

But whatever Robin had been about to say, Jack never found out, because the call was suddenly filled with static and audio distortion, Robin’s words lost in a mass of broken sound that had Jack freezing where he stood.

“...Robin?” he whispered, eyes widening. “Robin...listen...I need to go. Okay? I can’t...I can’t hear you, but I th-think–”

The call dropped before Jack even hit the end button, the cell phone slipping from his hand and tumbling to the floor with a quiet thump against the carpet.

There was a static in the air, a crackle, an energy to it that made the hair on the back of Jack's neck stand on end. His breath hitched. The hand that still lingered near his shoulder tensed, and he could feel Sam curl closer to his neck.

"I'm not the only one feelin' that, yeah?" Jack breathed, his eyes darting around his apartment and landing on nothing. He took an involuntary step back toward the door.

 _"Nuh-uh. I feel it too..."_ Sam's worried voice floated across the back of his mind. Jack nodded. Alright. So he wasn't crazy.

A lamp across the room sparked and popped, the bulb blowing out suddenly, and even as small of an occurrence as that was it made Jack jump. The room was plunged into darkness. Wide blue eyes latched onto the deadened lamp.  
  
"W-What the hell is going on...?" His voice sounded strained, even to his own ears.

But the question he asked was one he was almost certain he knew the answer to. This static, this...tension. Electricity. He knew this feeling. It was one he was far too familiar with, one that he had experienced before.

Anti.

The room had felt much the same as this when Anti had appeared during his stream last time, when he had pinned Jack to the wall by his throat and toyed with him in front of an audience, had left him scared and shaking in a way he never expected he'd have to feel in his life. Until then he hadn't been sure if Anti was real. But now? Now there was no denying it. So the feeling in the air, the tension, the spark? It flooded him with a very real and tangible fear that wasn't without reason.

"Ďid̎ ÿo̊u m̰i͋šs̶ m̰ē?"

A voice, so close, a cold breath against his ear. Jack cried out and flung himself away from the sound, knees hitting carpet as he hurried _away_ from his own front door now, scrambled across the living room with desperate movements, one hand clamped over Sam so he wouldn’t lose him. There, by the door, his smile just as sharp and as wicked as Jack remembered, was the glitch himself. His image crackled and distorted for a moment - Jack could see the pixels separating as he stood there - and a moment later he had flickered forward, appearing a few steps closer.

Shit...shit, shit, _shit_...he had half a mind to scream, to call for Mark, but at this point Mark had probably already made it down to his car and wouldn't hear anything. All he could hope for now was that he could stall long enough for his friend to make it back inside. Two on one were better odds in this situation.

"I̥ d̠on̪'t e͊v͐enͥ g̴ét a h̒e͊llo̖, J̠åc̮k̾a͈b͗ö́y?"

_“Go away!”_

Jack’s eyes widened and he went stiff, panic doubling. Sam had wriggled free from his spot on Jack’s shoulder and he was hovering in mid-air between the two men in the room, planting himself boldly before Anti as though he was planning on defending Jack himself.

“Sam, don’t–”

 _“Leave him alone, you meanie!”_ Sam sounded so brave, so determined, so…so angry for such a small little being. _“You hurt Jack, and you made him sad, and - and–”_ Sam wriggled in the air and tried to make himself look intimidating. _“–and I’m not gonna let you hurt him again!”_

Contrary to what Jack was sure Sam had wanted, Anti didn’t look scared at all. In fact, he smiled...a gleeful smile that had Jack dreading whatever was about to happen.

“W̠e͆ll, a̒re̮n't y͞oṳ a̸ b̸ra̢v̜e lĭt͉tle t̹oa̤s̈t̤èr̔?” Anti crooned, his head tilting far to the side in a way that was eerily non-human. He held out a hand, palm-up, and the air above it distorted and warped impossibly. A worn, dark jewelry box appeared there in a flurry of pixels, its lid popped open to reveal the empty space within. “Sȯr̬r̗y t̸o b̓ur̢s̈ţ ŷou̬r͊ b᷆u̫b᷇b̍l͑ě, S̕a̺m̮my̳, b̝u᷈t...yo̔u'rē no̸t̹ _ne͑e̓d̐ed_ f̔o͍r̈ toñḯgh̠t̡'s ća̧s̱t̎ o̱f͗ c̟har̐a͐ct̊e͓r̊s͊.”

Quicker than Jack could react, Anti glitched, vanished, and reappeared inches from Sam with the jewelry box held out before him. With one swooping motion, Anti had flicked Sam into the box, snapped the lid shut, locked it with a key and tossed the box over his shoulder to land neatly on the armchair in the corner.

“NO!” Jack sprang forward without thinking, arm outstretched as though to reach the box–

“D̹ǐd̵ I̽ _s͌a̝y_ y̪o͚u͘ c̡o̾u͎l̦d͗ m̐o͋v̫e͕?”

Before Jack could register the giggling words, he found himself tripping head-over-heels, colliding soundly with the front of the cabinet his television rested on. A jolt of pain pulsed through his shoulder and he cried out, biting his lip, biting his tongue. Desperate fingers clutched at his aching shoulder and he gritted his teeth.

“What the _fuck_ do you want?!” he bit out, panting and tense as he watched Anti slowly stalk toward him across the room. “You here to...to k-kill me? Hurt me? S...Strangle me again?”

“Wh͔a̠ţ d᷁ō ÿ́o̊u̖ t͔ak̓e m̉e̥ f̓or̓, a᷇ s᷀a͂di͉s͟t͊?” Anti scoffed incredulously.

Jack blinked at him, a sassy retort on his lips before he could stop himself.

“What, you - _ngh_ \- aren’t one? Could’ve f-fooled me...”

“I'̗m̺ m̛or̬e̍ ǫf a m̭a͒s᷅ochi͙s̜t̕,̘ r͖ea̪l͟l̓y,͏” Anti shrugged. Jack was surprised that Anti had even bothered to answer the question at all. “Bu͂t̢ bo͑t͐h̬ a᷊r̛e͞ p̭r̂ett͒y̎ a͘c̬c᷅u͑ra̻t̎e̍.”

Great. Good to know. Wonderful.

“N̚o̫, i͓t̋'s no͙t̘h̺i̝n᷆g s͕o̻ s͑i̔m͕pl̖e̍ as a̖l̥l̆ t᷁h̄a̓t,” Anti smirked, waving the thought away with one hand.

The air around his palm distorted and glitched, and a shining blade appeared in his hand on the way down.

Oh, fuck.

Anti was a few steps away now, and Jack scrambled backward across the floor, trying to get as much distance between himself and the glitch as possible...but he was cornered, pinned between the side of the TV cabinet and the wall, blocked in with no way out. It was starting to become a struggle to keep his breathing steady, his heart hammering away a tarantella against his ribs, his throat coarse and tight from tension.

The burst bulb from earlier had thrown the room into near-darkness, but what moonlight was coming through the living room window reflected off the sharpened blade in Anti’s hand, the light bouncing off into Jack’s eyes as the glitch knelt in front of him - close, too close - his eyes beginning to swirl with an inky blackness that Jack never wanted to see this close again.

Jack kept his eyes fixed on the blade, wide as saucers, and his breath hitched when he saw it inching closer and closer to his face. The touch of cool metal against his cheek made him tense and he clenched his jaw with a gulp. It wasn’t sharp. It wasn’t painful. Anti was dragging the flat side of the knife along his jawline, and Jack could hear the sound of its edge scraping against the coarse facial hair there.

“No̫…” Anti shook his head, and the sharp grin widened wickedly, appearing to split his face in two. “No, I ẖa͗v̶e m̪ůch... _͛mùch᷆_ b᷆i͈g͗g᷄er p̓la᷃n̶s᷉ foͥr᷆ yõu͕, J᷿aͅc̻k.”

 

 

Mark was humming to himself as he made his way down to the rental car, the keys jingling in his hand. Tim sat perched on his shoulder, one tiny hand clutching the collar of Mark’s shirt, and he was trying to hum along to whatever song Mark had stuck in his head right now.

It wasn’t his fault Katy Perry’s music was so catchy.

By the time he unlocked and opened the driver’s side door, he was well into the chorus, mumbling the words in an undertone to himself and for Tim’s entertainment.

“California girls, we're undeniable! Fine, fresh, fierce, we got it on lock~” Tim was giggling, and the sound brought a warm smile to Mark’s face. He shifted into the driver’s seat so he could reach his smoothie easier, but not before belting out the next few lyrics at the top of his lungs.

“West coast represent, now put your hands up!”

He did so, dancing in his seat, grinning and playing it up for his little biscuit’s benefit.

“Ooh, oh, ooh! Ooh…”

Something flickered in the corner of his eye, something red...or was it blue?...and he trailed off, a crease forming in his brow. Tim was still giggling softly. Had he been seeing things? With a soft chuckle, he reached over and plucked his half-finished smoothie from the cupholder, still somewhat chilled from the cool weather of the evening.

Yeah, it was probably nothing. The whole Antisepticeye thing had been keeping him on edge since he’d arrived here in England. He pushed himself out of his seat and shut the door behind him. But when he turned to head back inside, something in the reflection in the car’s window caught his attention.

Mark dropped his smoothie.

 

 

A quiet thumping rose up across the living room, a rattling that caught Jack’s attention as well as Anti’s.

Sam. Sam was trying to get out.

Anti looked away from his victim for a moment, only for a moment, some space coming between Jack’s cheek and the metal of Anti’s blade.

A moment was all he needed.

Jack lashed out with a fist and a knee, landing a punch square across the glitch’s face and driving a knee up into his gut. Anti tumbled away from him, distorting and flickering, a static-fused snarl of pain and annoyance bubbling up from his prone form. Jack shoved himself to his feet, leaping over Anti and heading for the front door. He had to get out, had to leave, had to get Sam and go–

_“I d͓O̬n͈’Ṭ t̉H͠iN̼ḱ sͅO͊!”_

Static, feedback, a crackle in the air, and Anti was in front of him again, seething with fury, blocking his exit. Jack was running on pure adrenaline now, veering left and heading down the hall toward the bedrooms. The bathroom. Recording room. Anything.

_“y̜O̰u̯’̒R̡e̿ N̈o̽T͔ g̓O̩i᷈N̸g̽ Ản̉Y͋w̳H̤e̦R̸ë́!̉”_

There he was again, cutting him off, keeping him trapped in the same room. Shit... _fuck…_

Mark. Mark was downstairs. He just - he needed to stall, to wait it out until Mark came back with his stupid smoothie. He could make it that long.

Jack did a one-eighty and darted back down the hallway, the rug slipping beneath his feet and making him stumble. He caught himself on the wall and kept going, kept dodging. He could do this. Distract him. Hold him off. Something. Anything.

Green.

...green?

Something green, in the corner of his eye. Green and orange.

Jack risked turning his head, risked a glance, and he caught sight of the Nerf gun - Chase’s Nerf gun - sitting on the kitchen table. Mark had been playing with the damned thing for days, and for the first time since it had resurfaced Jack was unendingly grateful that Mark had found it again. He made a detour through the kitchen, snatching it up and shoving the ziplock of foam discs into his hoodie pocket.

_Disc. Pull back. Load. Click. Wait for it. Be ready._

Jack circled his way back into the living room, Anti’s laughter echoing through the apartment, and he dove behind the coffee table with his plastic weaponed primed. He was ready.

He was terrified.

Jack would be an idiot if he pretended that this entire situation wasn’t scaring him within an inch of his life. He knew - he was trying not to think - that he could die at any second tonight, and that the pixelated parasite hunting him down in his own apartment was far too strong of an opponent for him to handle, with or without Sam. With Mark, maybe he had a chance, but even those odds were slim. If he didn’t die tonight, or if he didn’t at least get stabbed, he was going to drink until morning then invite every single one of his friends over to England to have the party of a fucking lifetime.

“O͗h͢,᷄ _Jȁa͚a̕a̓a̻c̈́k̘_ ~” Anti’s distorted, chilling voice echoed through the room and sent a shiver down Jack’s spine. “W͘h̅e͔re a᷇r̰e̶ y̑ou͏ hid͛ǐnͅg̤?”

Jack caught sight of a flickering black sneaker from his hiding spot and he popped up from behind the coffee table, firing the Nerf gun at the center of Anti’s chest.

Anti barely flinched as the foam disc bounced off of him with a spark of electricity. He blinked - dark, void-like eyes - and stared down at the harmless green projectile on the floor.

“A̛ Ner̼f͈ d̑i͞sč? Ȓe͏a̧ll̐y̕, Ja͙c͂k̇?᷀”

Jack shrugged. He pretended that he wasn’t sweating buckets and shaking like a leaf behind the Nerf gun in his hands.

“N-Not like I’ve got anythin’ else.”

“H̆o̲w͘ v᷁e̛ry “C̰h̦a͘s̟e B̜r̵o̦d͔y” o͈f̹ y̬öu͍.”

Somehow the mention of another Ego’s name on Anti’s lips made Jack tense up. It was surreal. It was strange. They were all fake - all of them fictional - yet Anti had somehow become so much more. The concept of the living incarnation of his once-fictional character mentioning another of his still-fictional characters so casually like that...it was unsettling, to say the least. Jack squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed. He just needed to hold out a little longer, just a little while longer, until Mark came back from the car. Keep talking. Keep going...

“W-Well...well…it’s t-technically _his_ gun...s-so…”

Jack opened his eyes.

Anti wasn’t there.

“I̚ kn̴ơw̼ w̖h̖a̽ẗ y᷆o̠u᷄’͍r͖e do̕i͖n̖g̉.”

The chilling voice seemed to come from all sides at once, and Jack could make out flickers of pixels and static in the dark shadows of the room. He fumbled with the ziplock in his pocket, pulling out a foam disc to load his Nerf gun again.

“Oh?” Jack asked, his voice coming out higher than he’d intended. “Do…” He cleared his throat. “... _do_ you now?”

“M᷅a̪r̿k̀i̟pl̻i̘e͛r᷀ i̵sn̄’t͡ c̊o͇m̕i͝n̩g͚ to͆ s̲a͙v᷀e͎ yo̫u̥.”

Jack’s blood ran cold.

“What–”

“H᷁e’̘s̎...ă li͢t̺t͖l̷e᷄ ţie͓d᷄ u̯p̉ a̳t̀ th̪e͡ m̘oͥmȩn͇ẗ́.” Anti’s distorted giggle echoed and circled in the empty air, causing goosebumps to sprout up along Jack’s arms. His breath hitched, eyes flying wildly around the room, trying to spot any sign of his doppleganger. “Y᷇o᷅u̥ wer͖e̸ṇ’t̃ p̼l̯a̿yi̟n͘g̉ _fa̯ir̤_ , Ja̒c̉k̩a̫b᷉o͎y…” The next words came front right over his shoulder, whispered into his ear like a dirty secret. “...s̥o̾ Į le͍veͅlèd͎ t̏h̬e͕ p̭l̎ay᷊i̹n͑g̵ fi̥el͔d͙. Ġot̥ ą c̋er̒t̛a͙i͇n _da̢r͍k_ a̭cq̑ŭa̖in͊t̮a̠n̸ce̬ of̿ m̪i̎ne t͖õ ẖęl̍p̖ m̓e̺ o̢u̟t a̲ li̫t͕t᷈l̪e.”

 

 

Mark was scared to blink, staring at his own reflection in the car’s window with his jaw clenched, a vein pulsing in his neck. A figure stood just behind his shoulder, his body outlined in a familiar red and blue, looking so familiar yet so foreign at the same time. By the time his smoothie hit the concrete and burst open, splattering the ground, only fractions of a second had passed...but it felt like an eternity. He blinked.

Dark was gone.

“Mark?” Tim’s voice cropped up beside his ear, confused and a little worried.

“...hold on to me, okay?” Mark murmured, and he brought a hand up to try and shield his familiar from whatever might happen. Whoever might happen.

**“I’m not here for him, you know.”**

The voice, deep and echoing and so like his own but different, startled him into turning around. He hadn’t been in the reflection, but he hadn’t actually left. His name left Mark’s lips in a strained whisper.

“Darkiplier.”

 **“Face-to-face, at long last,”** Dark nodded. He smirked, folding his hands behind his back. **“And like I said...I’m only here for you. This is all coming from** **_your_ ** **mind, Mark.”**

“Mark? What’re you lookin’ at?”

Tim. He sounded so innocent and confused, so worried about Mark, and what Dark was saying suddenly registered in Mark’s mind.

“Tim can’t see you, can he?”

 **“Tim doesn’t** **_have_ ** **to see me,”** Dark corrected, raising an eyebrow in clear impatience. **“I don’t want him to see me, therefore he can’t. But you…”** His head tilted to the side and he made his neck pop, his shell cracking and separating for a moment. Then he leaned forward, intrigued. **“...you, I can never quite hide from. Not completely. Why is that?”**

“I...don’t know,” Mark shook his head, confused. Lost. Dark was here, and he was very real, and he was talking to Mark as though none of this was odd. “Maybe...uh....maybe because I made you?”

**_“Y̙̭o͏̖͔͙͓̼u d͇͈̭͚i͎̤͉ḍ̼̠̭̟̯͡n̡͕͎̙̜’̠̹̫̦͙͡t ma̟k̼͎͝e̗̗̱͈̬ͅ m̰̥ḛ.”_ **

There was an echoing fury boiling under the words, and the air around Dark seemed to darken considerably in the moment. Mark took an involuntary step back towards his car.

“I - what?”

 **“You didn’t** **_make_ ** **me.”** Dark’s anaglyphic image was separating, tearing itself apart, and one of his echoing reflections seemed to scream silently into the cold night air. All the while, his core image remained stern and unyielding, showing barely any emotion at all. **“You** **_destroyed_ ** **me - destroyed** **_us_ ** **. You stole his body. You condemned her to hell. You drove him to insanity. You ruined their lives.”**

It clicked, then, what Dark was talking about. This was exactly what Mark had been scared of, worried about, when he was talking to Jack in that cafe. _This_ was why he was regretting the creation of “Who Killed Markiplier”...or more accurately, he was regretting the addition of the character of Mark. The Mark who was an actor. The Mark who was an asshole. The fictional Mark who ruined everything and destroyed so many people…

...Dark was under the impression that Actor Mark and YouTube Mark were one and the same.

Mark blinked, and suddenly Dark was so much closer than he had been before. The darkness that had been enveloping the demon was surrounding Mark too now, and it was absolutely _suffocating_.

 **“...but, I suppose I should be thanking you,”** Dark continued, a smirk finding its way onto his face. He tilted his head to the side, regarding Mark thoughtfully. **“In a way,** **_you_ ** **...are the reason I exist. Your damnation of your friends led to my creation. A part of me is furious...but a part of me is more than grateful. You set the darkness free, Mark.”**

Mark’s heart was pounding, rapid, in his chest and he could feel a minute panic slowly flooding his very soul. He gulped and shook his head, one hand still holding Tim close - Tim, who had fallen strangely silent, though Mark didn’t stop to question it.

Dark wasn’t here to hurt him. Dark didn’t resort to physical violence unless he had to, Mark had written him that way. While Anti went straight for the knife, Dark resorted to other means of making his point and making his mark.

This was all in his mind. Dark wasn’t physically here.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “You...I’ve been seeing you, for months, but this is the first time you’ve actually spoken to me. What changed?”

Dark’s gaze trailed off to the side, toward the apartment, before settling back on Mark.

 **“A friend asked for a favor.”** He quirked an eyebrow. **“I merely agreed.”**

A cry of pain broke the odd non-silence of the evening, a cry of pain that sounded all too familiar and was coming from the apartment Mark had been trying to return to. His eyes widened.

_A friend asked for a favor._

A friend of Dark’s. Anti.

_“Jack!”_

Mark shoved away from the car and ran through Dark’s mirage of a body, the blue and red dispersing into wisps of dark smoke. Mark only made it halfway to the stairs.

**“Clever boy. But you can’t leave. Not yet.”**

Dark’s voice echoed in his mind, sending a blinding pain through his skull that brought him to his knees with a shout. He clutched at his head, fingers tangling in his hair and digging into his scalp. He felt rather than saw Tim tumble off of his shoulder, falling the few feet to the ground, making Mark wince in sympathy. There wasn’t enough strength in him to free himself from the mental onslaught, let alone help his tiny friend.

But he needed to. He needed to get Dark out of his head, needed to help Jack. If Dark was out here, then Anti must be in there, and he’d already seen what Anti had done to Jack the last time he had shown up. It wasn’t pretty. Mark didn’t fancy seeing a reenactment.

_Get out...get out!_

**“Why would I? I have a job to do, Mark. You better than anyone should know that I never put in a half effort.”**

Images began to surface in his mind, horrible images, memories that had never happened...memories of his friends, his real friends, getting hurt…

_Please don’t. They don’t deserve this._

**“Neither did Damien. Neither did Celine. Neither did** **_William_ ** **.”**

“That...w-wasn’t me!” he protested, finally finding his voice, the words hoarse and weak. “You’ve got it - _ngh_ \- wrong! I’m - y-yeah, I’m Mark, but I’m n-not _that_ Mark! I–”

 **“Oh, quit with your pitiful lies,”** Dark sneered. **“Celine is already angry enough with you as it is.”**

“No, listen! I made up that version of Mark the same way I created you and Wilford and Abe – I’m just a writer, okay?!”

**“Give up, Mark. Nobody can hear you. Let’s see how long you last before you begin pleading for forgiveness. I have all night…”**

_Hold on, Jack. I’m coming. Hold on–_

 

 

Jack shuddered and shot to his feet, almost tripping over the coffee table in his haste to get away from Anti, who cackled in amusement from where he’d appeared directly over Jack’s shoulder. Jack rounded on the glitch and aimed the Nerf gun at his chest, not even caring that it was basically harmless.

“What did you do?!” he demanded, his concern for his friend overtaking his fear for his own life. “Is Dark gonna _kill_ him?”

“D̙o͕n͑’̚t b͐e͟ s͋i̧lly!” Anti smirked and rolled his eyes, playing with his knife out of sheer boredom, tossing it between his hands and flipping it in the air. It was clear he was skilled with his weapon on choice, throwing it around with ease like one would a half-filled water bottle. “O᷄l’ D̜a̩rki͈e̚ do̶ẹs̨n̈́’ť ju͊st̽ _ķill̔_ p̠eo᷈p̰l͌e̞. O᷀r͋ hē w͈on̎’̞t k̇i͏ll̫ Ma̻r᷊kipl̮i̧er͕, an̋y̑w̩a͕y̒.”

The knife soared a good foot or two in the air before tumbling downward, making Jack tense even as he watched Anti catch it cleanly by the handle.

“Fa͐r a͓š I̩ c̠a᷊n̅ t͂ell͚ he̟’̤s̄ p͞r̃et᷇ty̚ p̝i᷅s̱s͚e͔d͐ a̤t᷆ ṱh͔e̓ g̹uy̗. Be̘en̒ t͑oy̕īn͗’͈ w̶it’ hi̛m᷆ f̦o͐r̬ m̽o᷆nt̾h̟s̞,̈ o̊ř so̊ h͍i᷉s̝ r̓oboͅt́ s̽a᷁ẏs͍.”

Robot? Jack’s brow furrowed in confusion. Dark had robots now?

“N̛a̡h, Da͖r̓k̺’s͗ n̠o͊t̻ g̦onnå k̬i͗l͙ḽ Mar̃k̝. P͑ŕe̽t̩ṯyͅ s̒u̕r̾e ḣe᷇’d̈ r̯a̱the̗r dr̹i͖v̓ę h͂i͔m̃ t̰o̐ i͢n᷀s̷a͛nityͅ ḅefor̞e͓ tͅh͙a̓t ĥap̆p̝e̾ns.”

Jack swallowed thickly. Drive him to insanity? Could Dark _do_ that? He was brought back to the conversation he and Mark had had almost a week ago, in the cafe. The first morning Mark had shown up.

 _“Dark’s more subtle,”_ Mark had said. _“He works behind the scenes. He doesn’t deal with face-to-face conflict as much. He mostly sticks to the shadows. I mean, I gave him his backstory, I should know this…honestly, it makes me wonder if ‘Who Killed Markiplier’ wasn’t a horrible, horrible idea.”_

Mark had been worried, beyond worried, about the concept of Dark actually making his move. Jack had noticed it that day but hadn’t bothered to ask about it. He was beginning to think that, perhaps, he should have pushed a little more.

“Bu̼t y̾o̲u̱ h᷁aͅve̕n̰’t̰ goṯ th᷁a͗t͓ to w᷁o͢r͊ry̽ ab̻o̱u̺t̍, Ja͖cͅka᷁b͐o̱y!” Anti was grinning again, and Jack would swear that his doppleganger’s teeth were sharp, pointed. Deadly. “A͟ft̸ëṙ t᷁o᷁n̎ig̙h̸t, you̅ w᷄o̓nͅ’̥t͂ b͐e̡ _w̢OR̵r̈Yi͇N̞g a᷊BoUt a᷅N̡ÿ́T͒h̛i͙N᷇g͋_.”

Anti’s distorted shadow grew around him, engulfing his side of the room in a glitching, pulsating, corrupted darkness, and from its depths shot out a dozen or so venom-green cords of light. At Anti’s command, they darted forward and curled tightly around Jack’s wrists, his ankles, his knees and elbows, his chest - his throat. Not tight enough to strangle, but with his bruises still healing, it was more than tight enough to hurt.

Jack gasped sharply and gritted his teeth, snarling and tugging against the green strings, fighting for his freedom. He had to get out. He had to save Sam, had to help Mark. But there was something...odd about the strings. With each tug against his restraints, Jack felt a little more of the fight leaving him, his will to rebel slowly draining away. His head was pounding, his throat was sore, and his shoulder was throbbing with pain...so...so wouldn’t it…

...wouldn’t it be easier to just give in?

The Nerf gun fell from his hands, tumbling to the floor with a clatter of plastic and a muffled _thump_ against the carpet.

“ _No͊w be̺ a̦ go͟õd̏ li᷅t̏t᷁l͋e᷊ pup̝p͟ét, an̂d̯ ğo᷊ t̥õ s͕le̗e̥ṗ._ ”

Yeah...yeah, sleep sounded so _wonderful_ right now. Jack slowly let his eyes drifted shut.

 

 _Click_.

 

“You let ‘im go right this fucking second, or I blow your fuckin’ brains out, bro.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woot! It's done! ^^
> 
> This chapter actually took a lot longer to finish than I originally intended. For some reason I was really struggling to get going on it, but once I started into the ambush, it really started rolling. Believe it or not, this chapter is about twice the length of all the others. While most other chapters finish off at around ten pages in Google Docs, this one? This one hit a solid twenty. Absolute insanity.
> 
> Anyway! Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it, and comments and critiques are always appreciated! Ta!
> 
> ~ Pixie


	12. ...With Some Unexpected Additions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just as things appear dim for our heroes, a surprising appearance from a friend adds a touch of hope. The continuation of the previous chaos...because I believe I've left you all hanging for more than long enough. ;)

_Jack gasped sharply and gritted his teeth, snarling and tugging against the green strings, fighting for his freedom. He had to get out. He had to save Sam, had to help Mark. But there was something...odd about the strings. With each tug against his restraints, Jack felt a little more of the fight leaving him, his will to rebel slowly draining away. His head was pounding, his throat was sore, and his shoulder was throbbing with pain...so...so wouldn’t it…_

_...wouldn’t it be easier to just give in?_

The Nerf gun fell from his hands, tumbling to the floor with a clatter of plastic and a muffled _thump_ against the carpet.

“ _No͊w be̺ a̦ go͟õd̏ li᷅t̏t᷁l͋e᷊ pup̝p͟ét, an̂d̯ ğo᷊ t̥õ s͕le̗e̥ṗ._ ”

Yeah...yeah, sleep sounded so _wonderful_ right now. Jack slowly let his eyes drifted shut.

 _Click_.

“You let ‘im go right this fucking second, or I blow your fuckin’ brains out, bro.”

 _Shing_.

“I _told_ you scalpels vere good for more zen just surgery!”

“Oh, shut up! Take care of Jack while I deal with the Glitch Bitch.”

_“h᷊O̓w̶ d̍A͇r᷈E̖ y̶OͅU͎?!?”_

“Don’t even _think_ about moving, man. Try me.”

Whatever hold Anti’s puppet strings had had over him was beginning to dissipate, the cords themselves no longer as tight and restraining as they once were. He could feel them falling away from his body, as though they were no longer attached to the person that had wielded them before. Jack staggered, groaning, and he felt a pair of hands lightly grip his arms to stop him from falling over.

“Easy Jack, easy,” a voice cropped up from right in front of him, a foreign accent adding an odd flavor to the words. “Slow down. Zose strings can really affect ze mind, even if used for mere moments. Take it from me. I vent through it once und it vasn’t a fun time…”

Jack dragged his eyes open, fighting back toward some semblance of control - and his eyes widened almost comically, a startled noise escaping him.

He was staring at himself. Or, more accurately, a _version_ of himself. The glasses, the smirk, the concerned eyes, the familiar white coat.

“Sch-Schneep?!” Jack stammered. He felt as though he might just topple over from the shock of everything after all.

Jack’s eyes flicked upward, past the Good Doctor’s shoulder, to seek out Anti - and what he saw drew a sharp gasp past his lips.

Chase Brody, the trickshot master himself, was going head-to-head against the glitch demon, Nerf gun drawn and determination in his gaze. Anti was glaring at him with all the rage of hell burning in his eyes, and as Jack watched, he drew back his knife with the intent of landing a quick, painful attack on his taunter. Chase just shrugged and sighed.

“I warned you not to move, dude.”

Chase pulled the trigger, his gun still aimed at Anti’s head.

But it wasn’t a normal foam disc that left the gun’s chamber. It looked the same, at a glance, but there was something more to it - because instead of bouncing harmlessly off of Anti’s chest like Jack’s had, the disc collided with Anti’s skull and sent his image scattering into thousands of glitching pixels in a burst of bright, Nerf-green light. Anti staggered back, his image reforming, and when he did a deep, fury-laced scowl had set in across his features.

Oh, Chase had pissed off the wrong demon.

Anti snarled and dashed forward with his knife at the ready, but Chase had been expecting it. He dove right, rolling with practiced ease over the coffee table and landing in a crouch on the other side. He aimed again - had he even reloaded? _When_ had he reloaded? Did he even _need_ to? - and shot twice, hitting Anti’s shoulder and leg in turn. Both collision points exploded into static-filled distortions like Anti’s head had before, reforming just as quickly and with just as little effect as the first shot.

But it was still slowing him down. It was holding him back. It was hurting him, in a way, and Jack’s jaw dropped.

Holy. Fucking. _Shit._

“Jack!” Henrik snapped his fingers in front of Jack’s face, drawing his attention. “Vhere is Sam?”

“Sam–?” Jack mouthed the name, his thoughts still horribly fuzzy from whatever the _hell_ Anti’s strings had done to him. He screwed his eyes shut and shook his head, trying to clear his mind of cobwebs. Sam...Sam?

Sam!

“A box!” Jack’s eyes snapped open and he pointed across the room, both his and Henrik’s gazes following his finger. “Jewelry box. Anti locked him inside.”

“Scheisse!” Henrik swore under his breath and ran across the room toward the box, his coat fanning out behind him while he left Jack to clutch at the nearby bookshelf for support. His legs felt shaky, his head still buzzing. Fucking hell…

The room around him was nothing but chaos, too much noise and movement for him to fully comprehend all of it. He caught bits and pieces, his eyes darting between Chase and Anti’s rapidly-moving forms, and Henrik who was crouched before the chair in the corner.

Chase did some sort of parkour move off the couch, one foot planting firmly on the cushions and the other pushing off of the wall behind it. He spun in the air, diving over Anti’s swiping knife and barely avoiding getting slashed in the side.

Almost.

Chase hissed and tumbled across the living room floor in a sloppy version of what looked like a practiced roll, teeth gritted in pain and his free hand clutching at his thigh.

“Shit! _Fuck!”_ Chase hissed, pounding once against the floor with the fist still clutching his Nerf gun. He shot a glare at Anti from beneath the brim of his hat, snarling in response to Anti’s shit-eating grin and his glitching giggle. It seemed to spur him into action again, scrambling to his knees and bringing his red-stained hand up to grip his weapon more steadily, aiming again. “Fuckin’ _bastard!”_

Chase fired, the green shot piercing through Anti’s shoulder and drawing a distorted cry of pain from the demon. Chase smirked.

”Hah!” he taunted, standing up onto slightly unsteady feet and taking a staggered step backwards. “That’ll teach ya not to mess with Chase Brody!”

Anti snarled, clutching at his shoulder as its broken pixels reformed, this time a little slower than before.

"I w̉ou̚ḷḍn̄'̣t̮ b̎e̞ so̠ co᷈cky̓, i̴f̌ I we͛r̵e ỵo͗u͖, _de̬a᷊dbeåt̘_.”

Even from across the room, Jack could see Chase stiffen at the word. His confidence seemed to wane, the hold on his gun going a little slack, and there was a tightness behind his eyes that Jack recognized. Deadbeat dad. The exact thing Chase never wanted to be, and the one thing - whether it was true or not - that he regretted most.

Was that all it would take for Anti to get to him? One, two words?

Jack watched the man with bated breath. He could see the way Chase’s jaw tensed, the way his nostrils flared and his grip tightened, the way his eyes narrowed...and the way he planted his feet, training his gun back on Anti even as the demon glitched closer and closer, darting forward across the room. No, he wouldn’t be shaken so easily. Chase took two shots straight through the Demon’s chest...but this time Anti was expecting it. Anti was ready. He flickered out of existence just long enough to miss Chase’s discs, grinning wickedly, teeth sharp - but a third unexpected shot hit its mark.

When Chase had pulled the trigger this time, he hadn’t stopped at one or two discs. No. Again and again, unending, his aim shifting with each pull, he rained neon green ammunition down on the ever-approaching monster that seemed hell bent on taking him out for good. Shoulder, leg, chest, head, arm, shoulder–

Anti was hard to see clearly at this point, his image a flurry of exploding and reforming distortions of pixels in the air. He was speaking, shouting, something that Jack couldn’t quite make out through the fuzziness in his head and the level of distortion Anti’s voice had reached.

“Who’s cocky now, huh?!” Chase snapped. This wasn’t the same teasing banter he’d been using before, his tone more serious. “Eat Nerf, glitch bitch!” Anti was only steps away now, so at the very last second Chase dove to the right and landed in a crouch near Jack’s feet. He shot a grin up at Jack - _holy shit, it was like looking in a fucking mirror -_ before glancing past him toward Henrik.

“How’s that box comin’, Doc?”

“Nearly zhere,” Henrik shot back over his shoulder. He pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose and smirked. “Anti’s no idiot. Vhatever zis lock is, it vas made to be impossible to pick.”

“Plan B?” Chase asked, refocusing on Anti, who was finally regaining some semblance of solidity. “Or should we just skip all the way to Plan F-This and get the hell out of here?”

Jack had to admit that Anti looked a little worse for wear. He didn’t look any less angry than before, but a light sheen of sweat could be seen at his hairline, and the scar at his neck had begun to bleed. The battle was beginning to take its toll. Even so, Jack couldn’t help but gulp and press himself flush against the bookshelf he’d been using for support, as though he might be able to phase through it and hide between the books and photos and video game memorabilia that was kept there. Chase seemed to notice his distress and stood, planting himself firmly between Jack and Anti with his Nerf gun as their shield.

“Vhat do you take me for, a moron?” Henrik joked, chuckling. “Of course I have a Plan B! Zhere is _alvays_ a loophole to exploit, I know zat better zen anyvone.”

“Well are you gonna tell me the loophole, or would you rather leave me hanging while I’m facing down a _murderous computer virus?”_

“Oh, quit your vhining,” Henrik muttered. He turned back to the jewelry box, from which Jack could hear quiet squeaks and movement from Sam. Sam was okay. He was just...trapped. “I’m removing ze hinges instead. Just keep him distracted until I can–”

_“G̈҉e̦͍᷁Ť o̭Ȗt̙ o̵̹̦F͔ m̵͕Y ͘͜wA̷̵y᷀!”_

Anti had finally managed to reform fully, appearing rather suddenly right in front of Chase. Wide-eyed, gasping sharply, Chase brought his gun up to fire again – but Anti was faster. He grabbed Chase’s wrist and yanked harshly to the side, twisting Chase’s arm roughly and drawing a pained shout from the man.

“E̶no̻u͙gh̫ wi̅t̆h͗ y͜òu̸r _pLa̰S̶t̙I̼c͐ t͠Oy̦S͑._ Fi᷀r᷊s͖t M̤a̅r̠k̻ip̮l͊ie᷁r̝, th͛ên͖ J̼a̓c̲k͂...a᷊n᷇d́ nͅö́w̔ _ẙo͉u_ . I’m᷇ _s͍I̯c̅K _oF̈́_ i͛T!” _

A flurry of confusion crossed Jack’s mind. Mark…? Mark had never used a Nerf gun around Anti. Hell, he hadn’t even _met_ Anti. Had he? But...his musings could wait. Anti wasn’t playing games, not anymore. The Nerf gun clattered the ground, and as Chase grit his teeth, Anti’s mouth twisted into a sick smile.

_He had the upper hand now, and he wasn’t about to let it go._

Anti’s grip tightened and he wrenched Chase away from his protective position in front of Jack, sending Chase tumbling across the ground and out of his way. The space between Jack and Anti seemed to vanish in an instant and Jack’s vision was filled with the sharp, angry grin of a dark-eyed demon. A hand - a tight, painful, semi-solid hand - closed around Jack’s throat, and he could have sworn he felt his heart stop as fear flooded his system.

_Not again. Not again. Please, not again…_

White spots danced in the corner of his vision, blurring the edges of Anti’s face, due in part to fear alone. He knew what Anti was doing, now. Anti didn’t want him dead. He wanted him under his control. He wanted to take over. And if he lost consciousness, if he wasn’t awake to fight against that control, it would be so easy, too easy, for Anti to...to...what? What was the end goal here?

Jack couldn’t even think straight anymore, his thoughts a fuzzy mess of static. He brought a hand up to grip feebly at Anti’s wrist, the other reaching out to push at the glitch’s chest, his actions weak and sluggish. Distant words floated through his mind, so near yet so far away. He couldn’t focus enough to figure out who was saying them, or how real they were.

“Doc, c’mon! Hurry up! He’s not letting me get close enough to–”

“I know, I know! I’m almost zhere, just one more–”

 _“No, I ẖa͗v̶e m̪ůch..._ ͛mùch᷆ _b᷆i͈g͗g᷄er _p̓lan̶s᷉ foͥr᷆ yõu͕, Jaͅc̻k…”_ _

_Not enough air, can’t breath, it hurts it hurtsithurtsithurts–_

_‘Anti you gotta stop! Please!’_

Sam’s voice rang through the room, and a blur of green crossed in front of Jack’s vision. The grip around his throat went slack, not leaving completely but giving him enough room to _fucking breathe._ He gulped down air like it was the sweetest thing he had tasted, and when he refocussed on the scene before him, he saw Sam sitting on Anti’s shoulder. His little eye was full of emotion, pleading quietly with all the adorable sadness of a kicked puppy. And Anti–

..Jack almost couldn’t believe what he was seeing. If he didn’t know any better, he might just go so far as to say there was a softness in the way Anti was looking down at the little eyeball, an odd sort of affection and guilt that couldn’t possibly be real. There was no way.

 _‘Please don’t do this,’_ Sam was saying quietly, a shaking unsteadiness to his word. _‘Don’t hurt Jack. I love him very much and I need him, and he...I don’t like seeing him get hurt. It makes me sad, and I...I don’t wanna lose my D...family. He’s my family. So...so please? Let him go?’_

 _Click_.

“Just listen to the kid, man.” Chase had recovered his Nerf gun and was standing in the middle of the room, his aim trained on the back of Anti’s head. “Don’t make him cry.”

“You’re outnumbered.” Henrik this time, standing just off Chase’s shoulder with his scalpel in hand, tightening the blade where it sat in the handle, stern eyes peering over his glasses at the pair. “Zhere are four of us, und only one of you. Zat could change, ze longer you’re here. You’re already vorn out, I can see it...and who knows who else might show up next…?”

Jack could see a vein in Anti’s neck pulsing, his jaw tight and eyes narrowed. For a moment, Jack thought the demon might turn them down, might defy them all and go on with his plan anyway. But then Anti’s eyes fell on Sam again...and something in his expression changed. He snarled and shoved away from the bookshelf, leaving Jack to slouch against it in utter-fucking-relief before glitching away in a flurry of static, electric sparks, and distorted pixels. Sam was left tumbling down from where Anti’s shoulder had been, barely catching himself in the air before hitting the carpet.

_“T᷊hi̘s̴ _i᷁sn't̠_ t̔h͏e l͟a͚s̏t͗ y͚oͅủ'l̙l᷁ s͎e̐e̹ őf̆ m͚e̦.” _

With those final words the tension in the room dissipated rather suddenly, and Jack slid down to the floor to sit back against the bookcase and catch his breath. His throat was on fire and he coughed, wincing, trying to swallow in an attempt to sooth the renewed soreness. It didn’t really help.

_‘Jack!’_

Before Jack knew what was happening, he was bombarded by a tiny green projectile, Sam nuzzling up against his cheek and ‘cuddling’ every part of Jack’s face that he could reach.

“I’m–” Oh, _god_ his throat hurt. Jack winced again and brought up a hand to catch the overactive eyeball, tugging him gently by the tail until he was floating where Jack could see him. He smiled weakly, and this time he let his thoughts speak for him.

 _‘I’m okay, Sam.’_ He smiled softly. _‘I’ll be fine, thanks to you. You saved me, buddy. You’re so, so brave…’_

Sam giggled quietly at the compliment, his frantic movements slowing for the moment. Jack could still feel the worry that Sam was feeling, a tiny beacon of distress in the back of his mind...but it wasn’t quite so strong as it had been before. He let Sam go and the little eyeball immediately snuggled up against Jack’s chest where he could feel his guardian’s heartbeat, strong as ever if not a little rapid.

“Not to interrupt zis _wunderbar_ little moment,” Henrik spoke up. “But I believe zhere is somebody else ve should be helping?”

_‘Oh, yeah! Where’s Mark and Tim?’_

It was as if an electric shock had jolted him as the realization struck.

“Dark!” Jack’s words came out pained, hoarse, wheezy, his voice not all there. He winced and gritted his teeth, struggling to his feet and fighting past the flames in his throat. “Dark... _ngh_...h-he’s outside. Mark went...car. The car.”

Chase and Henrik exchanged a look, and Chase nodded.

“I’m on it.”

He was out the door before Jack had even found his footing. Jack made to follow him, more than just a little worried about his best friend, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him where he stood.

“Nein, you’re not going anyvhere,” Henrik scolded, shaking his head. He guided Jack over to the couch, ignoring his protesting gestures and looks, and forced him down onto it. “You’re injured, und I’m not about to let you go running off into anozher fight so quickly. God, you’re just like Jackie…”

Jack opened his mouth to protest, remembered his throat, and thought better of it in favor of flipping off Henrik with all the impudence of a bratty teenager. The good doctor huffed and sat on the coffee table across from Jack, shaking his head.

“Chase can handle himself, Jack. I trust him vith zis. Ja?” He pushed his glasses up his nose and leaned forward toward his patient. “Now...vhere vere you injured…?”

 

 

Mark’s head was pounding, his eyes screwed shut and his nails clutching at his scalp so tightly he couldn’t tell if he had broken the skin or not. Images rushed past in his mind’s eye, rapid and flashing and horrifying all at once.

It would be enough to drive anyone mad.

**“Have you given up yet?”**

Dark’s voice echoed against the inside of his skull, drawing a pained whimper from Mark, who had yet to change positions from when he had curled up in a ball on his knees at the start of it all. _It’s not real_ , he kept reminding himself, even as he saw Amy’s pained, pleading eyes staring back at him from his own imagination. _It’s not real, and it will never happen._

It was the only thing holding him together at this point, that and the thought that somewhere inside the apartment, Jack was counting on him, counting on his help. He needed to fight this, fight back.

_Think of something happy._

The little idea that popped into his head sounded remarkably like Tim, which wasn’t too much of a surprise really. Tim was a voice of wonderful positivity in his life, a small beacon of cheerfulness that he could always depend on to brighten his day. So to say that his internal positivity was voiced by the little box? It made complete sense.

Think of something _happy_.

Himself and Amy, going out for ice cream. Ethan and Tyler, the three of them, laughing through their lines in a short film. A take for the blooper reel, clearly. Kathryn’s teasing remarks. Chica, giving him happy puppy kisses. Himself and Jack, laughing over Spaceballs and Sea of Thieves, acting like idiots and loving every second of it.

Kissing Amy goodnight.

It was helping. It wasn’t lightening the pressure by a lot, but holy _shit_ was it helping. Mark felt some semblance of clarity begin to return to his mind, regaining a sense of awareness that had been lost to him in the sudden onslaught of Dark’s mental attack.

Mark lifted his head slightly, trying to locate Tim somewhere against the concrete backdrop the driveway provided. Instead, dark polished shoes came into his view, the ground crunching ever-so-slightly beneath their soles, and Mark stiffened. He saw the man - _no, he wasn’t a man, he was a demon_ \- crouch before him, watching him. Watching. Observing.

 **“Trying to fight back, are you?”** That voice again, smooth and deep and haunting and charming all at once. Echoing. Looping. Belittling. **“I’m surprised...and here I thought a spineless, self-serving, self-worshiping** **_monster_ ** **like you, wouldn’t have enough humanity left in him to find any light in such a dark–”**

` “Sir?” `

Another pair of shoes had appeared near Dark, just beyond him, these ones dark grey sneakers. They were neat, crisp, unworn in any way...and Mark had a sinking feeling he knew who this new arrival might be.

**“What is it, Google? Can’t you see I’m busy?”**

Mark hated being right sometimes.

` “Antisepticeye has vacated the premises.” `

Mark froze.

` “He would like to inform you that issues arose and things did not go according to plan. There were...as he said, “more players on the board” that he had not anticipated. Anti would like to discuss this matter in more detail, but for tonight, he is no longer in need of our assistance.” `

A long pause followed the android’s words, and Mark felt both relief and heart-stopping anticipation in that moment. Anti was gone. Jack was okay, probably. But...what did that mean for him? Would Dark leave, just like that? Or–?

 **“Pity.”** The word stopped Mark’s careening train of thought in an instant. **“And here I was hoping I’d be able to break our friend Mark here before the night was out. Ah, well...perhaps** **_another time_ ** **.”**

The pressure in his mind vanished in an instant, leaving Mark to gasp sharply and run his hands through his hair with closed eyes. The relief was absolutely monumental. The vice that had been keeping him in constant pain was gone, and all that remained was a throbbing headache that Mark was sure he could alleviate with some Advil. He sat up, slowly, his gaze dragging upward until both Darkiplier and Google were fully in his sights.

It was like going to a wax museum, where all the wax figures were supposed to be you. They all looked pretty damn close, but there was something... _off_ about them, because the weren’t exact copies.

Plus the fact that one of those wax figures was actually an android, and the other made it look like you were staring through red-n-blue 3D glasses, and neither of the wax figures was actually made of wax…

...yeah, okay, maybe Dark had screwed up his head more than he’d first assumed.

` “Is it wise to simply leave him behind as he is?” `

**“What damage could he possibly do?”** Dark quirked an eyebrow at the android. **“He knew I existed beforehand; it wouldn’t take a genius to assume others have surfaced as well. This changes** **_nothing_ ** **. Besides...it isn’t as if we can’t find him again after this evening.”**

Dark eyes that held a sinister promise locked on Mark’s, and a shiver went down the man’s spine.

**“We have eyes everywhere. He can’t hide, not from us.”**

Pounding, running footsteps interrupted what Mark was sure would have been a rather chilling closure. (As if Dark’s last statement hadn’t been chilling enough already.) All three heads whipped around to see Jack bolting for the driveway, the Nerf gun Mark had been playing with all week held tight in his grip. With a cocky grin and more determination than Mark thought was fitting for such an action, Jack aimed his weapon at Dark and cocked his head to the side.

“Game over, Edgelord,” he taunted. Something about the way he was acting, the way he was _talking_ , made Mark do a double-take. “Your homeboy Anti just ran off with his tail between his legs. I think it’s high time you did the same.”

Mark squinted at his friend. When the hell had Jack had time to change his clothes…?

` “Should I neutralize him, sir?” `Google’s eyes had taken on a red hue, the logo on his shirt glowing brighter than before, but Dark held up a hand to stop his colleague.

 **“That won’t be necessary, Google.”** Dark folded his hands behind his back, smirking at Jack and casting a humorous glance toward the toy he was wielding. **“As it is, my** **_friend_ ** **and I were already on our way out. No need for any further casualties. Not this time.”**

Jack nodded to Google, not yet lowering his gun.

“Your Brobot seems to think otherwise.”

 **“Don’t mind him. It’s just in his programming.”** Dark cast a sideways look of contempt toward Mark, still kneeling on the ground, and his lip curled in disgust. **“Until next time,** **_old friend._ ** **”**

Then both Dark and Google vanished into wisps of black and grey smoke, leaving no trace behind, no hint that they had ever been there at all.

“Oh thank _fuck_...”

Mark groaned and dragged both hands over his face, rubbing the worry lines away and trying to massage his headache into non-existence. He heard footsteps approaching him, but they didn’t quite reach him. Instead he heard Jack veer a little to the left and stop there, an odd sound of plastic-on-plastic reaching his ears. When he let his hands fall into his lap and opened his eyes he realized what it was.

Jack had clipped the Nerf gun into a holster attached along the back of his belt - as though that was were it had always belonged, but where the hell had it even come from? - and he was crouched on the driveway reaching for something that was just out of sight around the front end of the car.

“Oh, buddy...what did he do to you?”

Mark frowned, his brow furrowing in confusion. Who…?

 _Tim_.

Mark stumbled to his feet to get closer, peering over Jack’s shoulder, and sure enough the tiny box was unconscious in his friend’s hands. He didn’t look hurt, just...asleep. Knocked out. Mark reached over Jack to take Tim from him, his hands as gentle as ever as he cradled his little biscuit against his chest protectively.

“Dark...he said he wasn’t here to hurt Tim,” Mark muttered, glancing up at Jack. “I don’t think - I think he’s just asleep.”

“I hope so,” Jack nodded, tugging at the brim of his hat and giving Tim another thoughtful glance before standing and turning his gaze back to Mark. “You good though, bro? Mister My Chemical Romance didn’t hurt ya too badly?”

“Not really, no,” Mark shrugged. He started to shake his head too, but the action made his head pound and he immediately decided never to do that again. Instead he stared at Jack, bewilderment flooding his features. “Wait, me? What about _you?!_ Last time Anti was here he nearly killed you, Jack! How did you even–”

The thought was cut off by a rather unexpected laugh from Jack. The Irishman’s expression was bright, humorous, and the laughter that left him was loud and genuine, but the fact that he was laughing at all left Mark staring at him in baffled silence.

“Bro - _dude._ Oh my god, no.” Jack shook his head, eyes sparkling, and he chuckled as he went on: “Mark, I’m not Jack.”

Um. What?

“You’re not–”

“I’m Chase,” Not-Jack grinned. “Chase Brody.”

Mark blinked, and several things lined up in his head in that moment.

Change of clothes. Nerf gun. Nerf _holster_. ‘Brobot’ and ‘Edgelord’ and ‘Your homeboy Anti’ and–

“Oh my god, you’re the trick shot guy.”

“Yeah!” _Chase’s_ grin widened and he shot Mark a pair of finger guns. “Exactly! Bro Average, trick shot master! Nice to meet ya, man!”

Mark’s expression was hovering somewhere between amusement and stupefaction.

“Of...course you are. And, uh...how...how many…?”

“How many Egos are there right now?” Chase snickered, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Just three, for Jack. I dunno how many Evil Twins _you’ve_ got lurkin’ around, but it’s just me and Henrik and the ol’ Glitch Bitch on Jack’s end. Hen’s taking care of Jack inside right now.”

“Henrik…?”

“Doctor Schneep.”

“Right, okay. The...the German guy.”

“Heh, sure, yeah.” Chase snorted and glanced back toward the apartment, then around at the windows of the other residence in the area. “...actually, we might wanna head in before anyone starts askin’ more questions than they already will be, yeah?”

“Uh…” Mark blinked and shook himself mentally, still struggling to wrap his head around _just how similar Chase and Jack looked_. He supposed seeing Google, Dark, and himself in the same place probably looked equally surreal. “Yeah. Good point.”

 

 

“Jack, sit still! _Leichtsinnig…_ ” Henrik muttered the word beneath his breath, then glared half-heartedly at Jack over his glasses. “Reckless boy.”

“Hey–!” Jack’s protest came out wheezy and he winced, scowling in annoyed silence instead.

Jack’s sweatshirt had been carefully wrestled off of him not too long ago, and the German doctor was already examining the rather impressive bruises marking Jack’s shoulder. The collision with the television cabinet hadn’t broken the skin, but the area was already turning a deep red color and it hurt to the touch. Jack bit back a whimper as Henrik carefully felt around the area with prodding fingers. He shot the medic a wary look.

“Are you sure y-you actually...know what you’re doing?” he asked, whispering instead. “You don’t have a _real_ medical license…”

“Hush!” Henrik scowled at the YouTuber, his eyes narrowing. “I may not have one, but I vent to medical school same as anyvone else in my field! Ze only reason I _don’t_ have a license is because I–”

The door opened then, drawing the attention of both men and Sam, who had been snuggled up in Jack’s lap. Sam let out a quiet squeak and went airborne, darting across the apartment to snuggle against Mark’s cheek happily.

“Seán?”

“Mark!”

The name hurt to say, the word coming out hoarse and quiet and pained, but Jack’s joy and relief was there nonetheless. He swatted away Henrik’s protests and shoved off the couch, drawing his best friend into a tight hug.

“Fuck, man…” he whispered the words against Mark’s shoulder and squeezed his eyes shut.

Jack ignored the pain in his shoulder, just letting himself revel in the fact that they were both alive, they were both safe, and they had both made it through whatever the _hell_ had happened tonight. Mark was hugging his friend back just as tightly….but with only one arm.

“Do I even wanna know what the hell Anti did up here while I was gone?”

“...probably not,” Jack admitted quietly. “An’ you’d probably say the same ‘bout whatever Dark did to you outside.”

A low, humorless chuckle rumbled through Mark’s chest and Jack finally stepped back, a weak smile playing across his lips.

“Well...you’re not wrong, I _would_ say that,” Mark shrugged, and Jack saw him bring his hands against his chest, holding something there. “But...uh. We kind of need to keep each other in the loop, don’t we? So we can–”

Mark’s gaze trailed downward and he broke off, his eyes widening and his jaw tensing.

“...is that...new?” he asked.

Jack knew what Mark was referring to without even having to ask.

The bruises on his throat, he was sure, looked worse than ever, the old ones from before still a sickly green-yellow while the fresh ones from this evening were a brilliant red. Plus he wasn’t wearing a shirt, so the massive pattern of bruises on his shoulder was fully visible too.

Unable to give him a proper verbal response, Jack just nodded with a grimace. A vein pulsed in Mark’s neck and he seemed to have to force himself to look away.

“VHY DIDN’T YOU _TELL_ ME YOU VERE BLEEDING?!”

“Oh my god, Hen, fucking chill, dude. It’s not that bad–”

“JACK _VHERE IS ZE FIRST AID KIT??!?!”_

“Henrik, for fuck’s sake!”

Jack shot a look to Chase, who was now actively trying to avoid Henrik’s healing warpath while a red stain of blood slowly soaked the thigh of his jeans. Oh...Jack’s mouth fell into a small circle and his eyebrows rose...that was where Anti had caught Chase with his knife earlier, wasn’t it? In the heat of the moment, the chaos of everything, Jack had almost forgotten that it had happened at all.

_‘Mister M-Mark? What happened to Tim…?’_

Then Sam’s voice chimed in, quiet and worried. Jack saw Mark wince and look down into his hands, where Jack now realized an unconscious Tim was curled safe again Mark’s chest.

“He’s...he’ll be alright, Sam. He’s just...asleep…”

 _“Vhere_ is ze _sewing kit–?!”_

_‘You sure he’s gonna be okay?’_

“Stop! I’m fucking _fine!_ Dammit, Henrik, you’re not my fucking _wife–_!”

Everything sounded too loud, the entire room an endless cacophony of noise, and Jack just wanted it to stop. He wanted quiet. His head was still pounding, still spinning, from everything that had happened since Robin had called, and all he wanted was to sit down, talk it over, drink some tea, and go the fuck to sleep. But he could only do that if everyone would just–

“SHUT UP!”

Jack fell into a coughing fit, his throat screaming at him for raising his voice to such a level after the beating his neck had taken...but it did the trick. The room had quieted, all eyes snapping to him, the expressions he received on the other end rather mixed. Mark looked concerned, Chase was still vaguely pissed, and Henrik had a frantic look in his eyes as though he might explode at any second. Sam let out a little startled squeak and tumbled out of the air, Mark catching him with one hand before the little eyeball even had time to right himself.

“God...okay…” Jack took a deep breath to regain some air and nodded, his voice back down to a whisper. “Okay. So. Mark, you’re good. Sit down an’ take care of the kids.” Mark stifled a chuckled at the comment, and the smallest of smirks twitched at the corner of Chase’s mouth. “Chase, sit the hell down. Let Schneep look at ya. I’ll get the first aid kit - yes, _and the sewing kit_ , I know, Doctor - then I’m makin’ myself some tea, we’re sitting the hell down, and we’re gonna talk about what the fuck just happened.” He threw a weary glance around the room, making sure everyone had heard him. “Got it?”

“Sure thing, man.”

“Ja. Understood.”

Jack looked to Mark last, who still had the same little worried frown creasing his forehead from before, but a bit of that strain had lessened to a degree.

“...yeah. Got it.” Mark managed a tired smile and glanced down to Tim and Sam, still held carefully in his hands, before returning his focus to Jack with a nod. “Thanks, Seán. Go do your thing. I’ve got it handled out here.”

Jack finally smiled then, and some of the tension melted out of his shoulders. He wasn’t alone in this. He wasn’t the only one who had to take charge of this absolute circus of a mess. He and Mark were in this together, best friends taking on the world together, and there were others waiting to help out in the wings if things really went sideways. Amy, Kathryn, Robin...maybe Matt. Perhaps Ethan or Tyler too, if they really needed the help. But the fact still remained that _he wasn’t in this alone._

So with one last, appreciative smile and a pat on Mark’s shoulder, Jack set about doing what he had tasked himself with. God, he couldn’t _wait_ for tonight to be over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well well well...here we are! The other half of the absolute chaos from the previous chapter, finalized here for you all. I'm sure this chapter will bring as many questions as the last, and they won't go unanswered! My apologies for taking longer to get this one out to you. Life's been a little hectic on my end...heh...but I still have inspiration for this story! Don't you worry! Next chapter, another much-anticipated character will show his face, and while not as much action will be included it'll be just as intriguing.
> 
> I hope.
> 
> As always, comments and critiques are always accepted! Let me know what you think, and if you notice any spelling or grammar errors please point them out...I don't always catch them all. ^^;;;
> 
> <3 - Pixie
> 
>  
> 
> UPDATE:
> 
> Hey guys! Pixie here~
> 
> My life has been suuuper busy the last month or so, so I have been unable to work on #SamLives the way I've been wanting to. But never fear! I'm back! But due to a certain recent turn of events in Jack's life, it's going to take a liiittle bit longer to get a new chapter out to you.
> 
> As many of you probably know, a few weeks ago Jack and Signe officially broke up. While this is a sad turn of events, it's also their personal lives and, of course, we should all respect that. I hope they're both doing alright on their own now but it isn't my place to pry. I'm not gonna make a big deal out of it because it shouldn't be.
> 
> However! In writing this story, Signe was going to be (and has, until this point, been) a main character and a main part of the plot. Out of respect for both Signe and Jack, I need to take the time to rewrite the chapters so that she isn't included in the story. It wouldn't be right to keep writing her in, nor would it be kind to find a way to "write her out" as it were. Instead I'm going to rewrite the previous chapters so that she isn't in it at all, swapping her role in certain scenes out for different people that would fit those moments just as well.
> 
> The plot of #SamLives will remain, mostly, the same. If you'd like to read the changed chapters feel free! After they have all been updated I'll continue my work on the new chapter, and Chapter 13 will be posted the moment it's completed.
> 
> Thank you for your patience, your understanding, and the lovely appreciation I've been getting toward this story! This is the longest fic I've ever written and I've been enjoying writing every word of it, partially thanks to the wonderful support you lovely readers have been giving. So thank you so, so much!
> 
> I'll do my best to get the next chapter out to you soon!
> 
> All my love,
> 
> Pixiemage
> 
>  
> 
> UPDATE 2:
> 
> Hey all! So I've finally finished editing all the old chapters, and I'm about to start posting the updates one by one. After I've finished I'll be sure to list which chapters have updated and which ones might be important to re-read. Due to removing Signe from the plot, I've had to move some things around and change some scenes to make up for it...and while some of it didn't change anything major, some did. I'll let you know which is which.
> 
> Anyhow! Keep an eye out for the next update, and once all the chapter edits have been shared, I'll be right to work writing the next part of the story! ^^


	13. Count Your Blessings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the stressful calm that follows the chaos, stories are swapped and certain small facts are brought to light. It's a small moment in time, where not much changes...and everything does. It's the beginning of something that nobody can define, but perhaps they'll try to when morning dawns.
> 
> Thankfully they're all still here to see that morning arrive.
> 
> Maybe counting their blessings for the time being is all they can really do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> READ THIS FIRST PLEASE! IMPORTANT!
> 
> Hey all! So I've finally finished editing and updating all the old chapters...or, as I like to call it, the 12-Chapter-Rewrite-From-Hell. It didn't require much actual writing but it's harder to go back and modify a section to fit changes than it is to start anew. So...yeah. It was a lot of work. ^^;; Due to removing Signe from the plot, I've had to move some things around and change some scenes to make up for it...and while some of it didn't change anything major, some did. Here's a comprehensive list/summary of what was changed for those of you who DON'T wish to go back and re-read everything (or those of you who want to know what is important to re-read and what isn't)...but if you want to skip this and re-read everything anyway, feel free!
> 
> CHAPTER 3 - BELIEF  
> Semi-major? The scene that begins during/after Jack’s nap. Before, it was Signe sitting in the kitchen. Now, I’ve changed it so PJ just hasn’t left yet. The conversation with PJ was fun to write too, so it ended up being a fun change to make!  
> CHAPTER 4 - PARANOIA  
> Minor. Nothing major, just the removal of a few passing mentions of Signe. It’s not necessary to reread this part.  
> CHAPTER 5 - THE LIVESTREAM  
> Minor. Again, minor mentions of Signe removed. But beyond that I also changed a line that’s now a little more important. It happens before the story even reaches the Livestream scene. Before, I had written that Robin had been the one editing Anti’s appearances out of his videos...but now, it’s Jack editing Anti out. Now, he’s not even letting Robin see that anything is wrong, because he doesn’t want Robin to worry in case it ends up being nothing. Robin is totally out of the loop where Anti is concerned.  
> CHAPTER 6 - SURPRISE VISIT  
> Minor. More really minor changes, same as the others. In this chapter, when Mark is telling Jack about how he called/messaged a bunch of people and nobody knew if Jack was okay, he mentions PJ and Robin instead of just Signe. There’s a moment in here where it’s explained and repeated, again, that Jack hasn’t told Robin about what’s been happening with Anti. (Also, exchanged the “Call your girlfriend” one-liner from Mark, into a “Your sweatshirt stinks how long have you been wearing it tf” one-liner from Mark.  
> CHAPTER 7 - A STUDY IN BELIEF  
> Minor. Almost nothing changes. Just one line about Jack editing out Anti instead of Robin, and at the end of the chapter Jack calls his Ma instead of Signe.  
> CHAPTER 8 - BUMP IN THE NIGHT  
> Major. Nothing needed to be changed in the flashback, but the entire conversation in the present - with Mark in the cafe - was basically re-written. Jack didn’t call Signe, so the whole discussion had to be changed...and now it’s about his mom and Robin. Definitely needs reading.  
> CHAPTER 9 - SPACEBALLS AND NIGHTLIGHTS  
> Minor changes. Swapped out Signe for Robin in the conversation after Jack’s nightmare.  
> CHAPTER 10 - CAN I PLEASE HAVE A WAFFLE  
> Minor. It’s not Signe’s makeup, it’s Jack’s sister’s.  
> CHAPTER 11 - PRESENTING TONIGHT'S CAST OF CHARACTERS  
> Major. The entire phone call. Used to be Signe, now it’s Robin, so it’s a very different conversation...sort of. A lot of reused lines, a lot of new ones too...so it needs reading.
> 
> Chapter 12 didn't require any changes, nor did anything before Chapter 3. I would suggest that you go back and at least read the chapters with "Major Changes" in them...just so you know how those changes affect future plot. Go ahead and do that now...and once you're back (or if you never left at all) that welcome to Chapter 13! Enjoy!

Jack couldn’t stop staring.

Honestly though...could anybody blame him?

Mark had settled into a chair near the couch, slouched down with Tim resting comfortably on his chest. Sam was there too, sometimes curled up near his friend, occasionally flying close by, all the while watching the unconscious little box with clear worry. Jack couldn’t hear what Mark was saying to him from his spot at the entrance to the kitchen. He knew it was something gentle and kind and reassuring though. Sam didn’t look as panicked as he had been before and Mark’s tone sounded soft from where Jack was standing.

Jack was wearing a baggy grey sweatshirt now, something that wouldn’t be too restricting against the fresh bruises on his shoulder and around his neck. He had grabbed it at the same time that he had fetched the first aid kit and now he was just...watching. Staring. Leaning against the doorway to the kitchen with his arms folded over his chest, worrying his lip between his teeth, waiting for his kettle to whistle and just...staring.

Who wouldn’t? He was staring at _himself._ Two of himself, technically.

They were both seated on the couch at the moment. Henrik had taken the first aid kit from him the moment he had reappeared with it in hand, and he had basically forced Chase to sit down, strip his jeans off, and let _ze good doctor_ patch up the knife wound on his leg. As if that wasn’t surreal enough, Chase’s Nerf gun was sitting on the coffee table now...the Nerf gun that could do far more than a plastic toy should be able to...and Jack kept finding his eyes being drawn to the colorful weapon. Not even an hour ago, that “toy” had been used to fight off a demon made of pixels and glitches, one who dressed like an edgy teenager and _also_ happened to look almost exactly like him. He couldn’t decide what part of this was more unbelievable.

A sharp whistle came to life in the kitchen behind him, and Jack let out a slow breath as he turned to go pour his tea.

Insane. This was all utterly insane. Complete madness. Fucking nuts.

Steam rose from his mug on the counter and he set the kettle aside, gripping the counter’s edge and leaning forward a little to let the steam ghost across his face. Jack closed his eyes, took a breath, and enjoyed the gentle warmth for a moment or two.

When had this become his life? Sam...that was one thing. Sam’s existence, he was used to that. It was small. It was simple. It wasn’t that insane of a change really, in comparison, and he’d had a few years to get used to it at this point. But now...well. First the explosion of the #SamLives excitement and the stress that accompanied it, then tiny glitches and paranoia, then the livestream...his jaw tensed and his brow furrowed at that thought. Then Mark. His best friend, showing up unannounced but far from unwelcome, and then Tim and Anti again and now Chase and Schneep–

Well. In all honesty he should be more freaked out by this than he was. Perhaps he _would_ have been, if he hadn’t already been considering the possibility of other egos coming to life ever since Mark had brought up his Theory Of Belief. At this point, not much else could surprise him. Chase Brody saving his life with a Nerf gun? Sure. Doctor Scheeplestien tending his wounds in the living room? Why not. Next it would be Jackieboy Man flying in through his bedroom window, and Marvin the Magnificent appearing in the kitchen in a puff of magic smoke.

As if to check this theory, Jack opened his eyes and glanced over his shoulder at the empty kitchen.

Maybe later then.

A huff of quiet laughter escaped him and he smiled to himself, shaking his head and shoving away from the kitchen counter. He’d keep an eye out for cat masks, he supposed.

  


Jack dragged the chair from the corner closer to the coffee table where the others were gathered. He settled back into it with his hands wrapped around his warm mug and tossed a tired smile in Mark’s direction.

“How’s Tim?” he asked on a hoarse whisper, glancing toward the tiny box still cradled against the other YouTuber’s chest.

Mark returned Jack’s smile with a weak one of his own.

“Still out like a light,” he murmured. “I think he’ll be okay. I’m just…” He glanced from Jack to Sam and back. “...a little worried.”

_“He’ll be okay though...won’t he?”_

Sam sounded so concerned, hovering closer to Tim and gently tapping the little box with his tail. He looked up to Jack with pleading hope in his eye.

“Of course he will, buddy!” Chase chimed in with a grin before Jack could even open his mouth.

Henrik was fastening a bandage wrap on his leg, almost finished with whatever he was doing.

“I’ve heard Tim’s a pretty tough kid,” Chase went on, all gentle smiles and warm eyes. Sam looked to be hanging on his every word. “He just faced a Big Bad Monster today, and I think he needs a little bit of a nap. Don’t sweat it, bud. When he wakes up you can tell him all about the big adventure you had too! Okay?”

Sam giggled softly, some of his worry visibly washing away. Jack could feel some of the strain lighten in the back of his mind.

 _“Okay.”_ Sam curled up close to Tim, and Mark adjusted a little so they both were comfortable. _“I’m gonna keep him super-duper safe ‘till he wakes up.”_

It was amazing to watch, and a little surreal. Jack knew that Chase was a father – he had created him that way, afterall – but it was entirely different to see the proof in person. It was so evident that Chase was good with kids. The way he talked to Sam, like everything from today had just been a fun and exciting adventure...the way he was smiling, conveying with everything he had that _it’s gonna be okay, buddy._ His demeanor was so patient and friendly with Sam, and he had been so protective of the little eyeball earlier when Anti had been in the room. He was made to be a dad - literally - and when Jack caught Chase’s eye from across the table, he mouthed a silent “Thank you” to him. Thank you for helping keep Sam happy.

Chase only nodded in response.

“Not to be ze one to bring up bad memories,” Henrik looked at everyone over his glasses, “but ve really need to speak about vhat just happened. Ja?”

Right. Jack winced. He really didn’t feel like talking about Anti right now. Mark made a face that made it clear he was equally reluctant to bring up the subject of Dark.

But all the same...Jack sighed and nodded.

“D’you–” Jack coughed and cleared his throat with a pained grimace, reverting back to whispering. “You wanna go first, or...or should I?”

“Nono, you go ahead, by all means,” Mark insisted with raised eyebrows. “Please, go on.”

Jack snorted into his tea, taking a sip. He let the warm liquid soothe his throat a little before speaking.

“Ya big baby.” He muttered the quiet false-insult under his breath with a roll of his eyes. “Fine. Me first, I guess.”

It was hard to tell a story with his throat so sore, but he was managing. It meant he didn’t need to go into too much detail, which Jack was more than grateful for. Living through the details once was enough. The beginning of it Mark was familiar with, and Chase and Henrik knew the end, but he was the only one who had been there for the middle.

A call from Robin. A smoothie. A glitch in his phone and static in the air...and Anti showing up again. Seeing Sam locked up, and being held at knifepoint, and stalling for time…

“You know,” he said on a whisper, the faintest of smirks gracing his features. “I was gettin’ so fed up with you and that fuckin’ Nerf gun, Mark...but if you hadn’t found it I dunno if Chase would’ve shown up in time. I held Anti back fer a few minutes wit’ nothin’ but a plastic toy and a couple o’ foam discs.”

“You’re joking.”

A grin slowly spread across Mark’s face.

“Nah, I’m serious!” Jack insisted, setting his half-finished tea aside on the coffee table. He leaned forward in his seat and grinned right back. “I was tryin’ to stall until you showed up and I found the Nerf gun in the kitchen. It didn’t actually do much, but I managed to drag out a bit o’ banter an’ foolin’ around. It bought me some time.”

“I totally saved your life!” Mark proclaimed, jabbing a pointed finger toward Jack from his reclined position in his chair. “I saved your life, so you owe me!”

“What??” Jack was huffing out soft laughter now. His expression was brighter than it had been in hours. “What th’ hell do I owe you?”

Mark’s mouth opened, then shut, and he appeared to be thinking for a long moment before he pointed at Jack again in apparent victory.

“Smoothie.”

“...a smoothie?”

“You owe me a smoothie.”

“What about the one from the car?”

“Well Dark kind of scared the shit out of me and I dropped it.”

“Oh my god–”

"Dudes. Focus."

Something flew over the coffee table and glanced off the side of Mark's head, something grey and red and semi-soft. Chase's hat.

"What the hell–"

"Quit it with the fuckin' smoothie," Chase interrupted Mark's spluttered protest with an eye roll. "Let's get through this shit."

He slouched lower in his seat to get more comfortable and carefully propped his injured leg up on the coffee table. With one hand he ruffled his hair a bit, smirking, and Mark realized he would have _instantly_ known it wasn't Jack out in the driveway if Chase hadn't been wearing his hat.

The dude's hair was a faded bright green.

Jack's wasn't. Not anymore.

"Let Jack finish what he was saying," Chase went on, "then I'll take over the part where me an' Henrik dropped in. Save your vocal cords Jackaboy." Jack smiled weakly. Chase gestured toward Mark. _"Then_ you can tell your dramatic and sordid tale about the Evil Lawyer and Robocop. And make it quick, will ya? We've still gotta have some kind of discussion about this bullshit, and I don't know about you but I'm fuckin' exhausted, man. Let's get this over with so we can go the fuck to sleep."

"I hear ya," Mark agreed, sparing another brief glance toward Tim. "I'm totally on board the sleep train."

"Sweet." Chase let his head fall back against the couch and closed his eyes. "...besides, we all know _I_ was the one who saved Jack's life, so if anyone earned a smoothie, it's _this_ badass right here."

Mark immediately started a noisy protest, Chase flipped him off with a shit-eating grin, and Jack drained the rest of his tea amidst the raised voices in the living room around him.

“Children!” Henrik was snapping now, looking more annoyed than angry. “Absolute children, all of you! Vhy do I even _try_ to get you to be serious about _anysing?!”_

 

Chase was right though, Jack supposed, even as he chuckled under his breath at the chaos. If they didn’t get through this quicker than they were, nothing would get resolved until the sun started to come up.

 

“Strings?” Mark asked. “Like...thread? Yarn?”

“Nah, these were all green and glowing. Like - I dunno. Reminded me a bit of Tron somehow.”

By the time everything had settled down again, Jack had already made himself a second cup of tea. He had offered to grab a couple drinks for the others so Mark and Chase were each making their way through a bottle of beer. (Non-alcoholic, in Mark's case.) Henrik hadn’t asked for anything….but Jack didn’t fail to see the cold look the doctor shot him over his glasses when he handed Chase his drink.

What was that about?

A thought to ponder later. Too tired. Other stuff to deal with first.

“Puppet strings.”

Jack and Mark both looked over to Henrik when he spoke. There was a dark look on his face, a slightly distant and pained look. Puppet strings. Jack furrowed his brow. Puppet. He remembered that. Anti had said it, when he was here...and before that, Jack had used that same word in the Silent Movie video he put up on Halloween last year.

“...like Jameson Jackson?” Jack asked, puzzling over the connection.

Henrik winced.

“Ah…he…yes, like zat too. But before JJ, he…zat is–” The good doctor trailed off. He looked as though he didn't want to say what was one his mind.

Chase was watching him carefully, and Jack could swear the man’s expression was a knowing and sympathetic one. It was as though Chase knew full well what Henrik was trying to tell them and he felt...almost sorry about it. But why would he…?

Wait.

_Wait._

Cold realization dawned and his heart dropped.

“...oh, _fuck_ …Schneep...”

“What?” Mark asked, looking between the other three men in the room, clearly not fully in the loop.

“Kill Jacksepticeye.”

Chase and Jack said it at the exact same time, the only difference in the way they said it being the slight difference in their accents...and the slightly different tones. Chase sounded understanding. Jack sounded regretful.

“Kill Jacksepticeye–?”

“My video,” Jack muttered, looking to Mark briefly in response before fixing his gaze back on Henrik. “The one I was tellin’ you about, wit’ Schneep playin’ Bio Inc Redemption. The one where... _he_...showed up.”

Nobody had to ask who ‘he’ was. Mark’s brow furrowed.

“Oh...I remember you mentioning it, yeah. But I never saw it.” He looked from Jack to Henrik and back again. “...why? What happened in it?”

Jack took a slow breath and finally dragged his eyes away from the doctor, who had taken off his glasses and was fiddling with them in his lap, his jaw tense.

“Well, Schneep–”

“Hen got possessed by that glitch bastard.” Chase cut off what Jack was going to say, his eyes hard and his words sharp as glass.

Mark’s eyes went wide and Jack flinched, dropping his gaze to the steam slowly rising from his mug of tea. He didn’t see anyone else’s expressions, but he could hear the worry in Mark’s voice...could hear the anger in Chase’s. He heard the clink of a beer bottle, the sound of someone finishing off a drink. Glass thudded against wood on Chase’s end of the coffee table.

“What did he do…?”

There were a few seconds of silence. Jack cast the briefest of glances upward to see Chase and Henrik exchange a look. Henrik nodded, and Chase took a breath to speak. Jack diverted his gaze.

“The Doc was trying to save Jack’s life, performing a surgery. Thought it was some deadly disease or someshit, I don’t know. But as the game went on–” He shot Jack a look, one that Jack only caught because he had glanced up at the right time. “–and I say _game_ because apparently the surgery wasn’t even fuckin’ _real_ –”

“Chase. Please.”

Chase’s climbing temper fizzled out a bit at Henrik’s low words. He cleared his throat and sighed, shaking his head. Took a breath.

“Anyway.” Chase grabbed a new bottle of beer from the table - topping off the lid - and sank back into the couch again. Jack hadn’t even realized he had been on the verge of standing. “Anyway...the further into it Hen got, the weirder shit got. Kept hearing stuff in his head, kept feeling his hands moving on their own. Weird laughter. Headaches.” He gritted his teeth. “That pixelated son of a bitch tried to make him strangle himself with his headphone cord.”

Jack knew all of this. He had acted it out. He had recorded it. He was more than aware of what “Anti” did.

His grip tightened on his mug.

“It vas a trap,” Henrik muttered into his lap. “A trick, one meant to get me out of ze vay, or perhaps just under his control. Und if Chase and Jackie had not realized somesing vas wrong and tried to find me, I suppose I vould not have gotten away so easily...if at all.”

A tense quiet settled over the room, broken only by the sound of Chase knocking back some more of his beer.

“...shit.”

“You said it, dude.” Chase raised his bottle in Mark’s direction in response.

“...so…” Jack cleared his throat, winced at its soreness, and continued in a whisper. “...so they’re puppet strings?”

“Ja,” Henrik nodded. The doctor took a deep breath and shifted on the couch, getting more comfortable. He leaned forward and propped his elbows on his knees, the tips of his fingers steepled together in front of him. “Yes, zey are. Anti uses zem to get into ze mind of vhatever person he uses zem on. Vhatever zey’re made of, he can utilize zem to manipulate people’s thoughts und emotions, can make people feel things, _see_ things, zat aren’t really zhere.” He winced. “He made me believe I vas really helping a friend in need...but zere vasn’t anybody on my operating table. Just an illusion. Trickery. A mirage, to get into my head.”

“That’s what I was feeling, then,” Jack nodded, understanding. A crease of worry had settled across his forehead, a little wrinkle of stress and concern between his brows. “He was tryin’ to convince me I was tired, and tryin’ to make me think it was a good idea to jus’ let him take over.”

“...ja, essentially.”

“Why would he even want to do that?” Mark butted in. “What would he gain?”

“Payback?” Jack shrugged, looking a little confused and uncertain himself. “Maybe just...my channel? Though I dunno why the hell he’d want it.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Mark shook his head slowly. “There’s...something I’m missing. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but...there’s...something else…”

He trailed off, bringing up his free hand to drag it across his mouth. Thinking. Puzzling.

“We can have a kickass brainstorm session later,” Chase shrugged, running a hand through his hair a few times. “But - fuck, man, can we just get through the storytelling? I’m about ready to tap the hell out.”

“...right, yeah, sorry.” Mark dragged himself from his thoughts to smile apologetically at Chase, keeping a gentle hold on the sleeping Tim all the while. “Go ahead. Finish up, and I can tell my side of things. Not much to tell really, so I shouldn’t take long.”

“Great. Awesome. Fan-fuckin-tastic. Let’s do this shit.”

 

It didn’t take long, just like Mark had said. Chase’s rendition of the night’s events made it out to be some kind of grand and thrilling adventure, perhaps portrayed as such for Sam’s benefit. Whether or not that was true Jack found it easier to listen to that way anyhow. And afterwards, it turned out Mark’s side of things was far less action-packed, but no less terrifying, than what Jack had gone through. Dark had shown up, fully formed for the first time, in front of Mark in the driveway. He had messed with Mark’s head, had made him see some absolutely horrible things...all as some sort of distraction to keep him away from Jack and Anti. Anti, who Dark was apparently _working with_.

That wasn’t fear-inducing at all.

And Google had shown up too. Googleplier, the search-engine-based android, who seemed to be acting as Darkiplier’s right hand man. It was a terrifying concept lifted straight out of Tony Stark’sworst nightmares. An android who had no qualms about acting as a villain and “destroying mankind”, working under the power of a dark and influential manipulator.

Ultron, eat your heart out.

The appearances of Dark, Google, and Anti, along with the thought that they still hadn’t a goddamn _clue_ what Anti’s end goal even was, made for a very stressful way to end the evening. At the very least Tim had woken up at some point amidst their retellings and discussions, much to the relief of Mark and Sam alike. Aside from being confused and a little sleepy, nothing seemed wrong with the tiny box, and perhaps - Jack thought to himself as he started clearing away empty beer bottles and glasses and mugs - they should just count their blessings for the time being. Everyone was exhausted, but everyone had lived. With Chase and Henrik here, Anti was now outnumbered again, and Jack had high hopes that more of his Egos were waiting in the wings to make appearances of their own.

Jack scratched at the back of his head as he left the kitchen, watching Chase interacting with Sam and Tim from the doorway. It was kind of cute, honestly. He was telling some kind of made-up story, complete with over-the-top hand gestures and funny faces, and both of the little familiars were giggling and enjoying every word. A soft and sleepy smile graced his features and he let out a quiet chuckle, shoving his hands in his hoodie pocket.

“Hey...Jack? Can I talk to you for a sec?”

He blinked away from the scene to see that Mark had gotten up, probably while he was dealing with the mess from the table.

“What’s up?”

Mark opened his mouth, glanced over his shoulder toward the others in the living room, then huffed and grabbed Jack by the elbow. He dragged him down the hall and out of earshot, stopping once they were almost to the recording room.

“...Jack, two more of your egos showed up tonight. And I know - I _know_ they’re the “Good Guys” but–” Mark glanced down the hall, back the way they had come, and a flash of distress ghosted across his face. “–what the hell are we gonna do?”

“Uh–” Jack blinked, his mind a little slow, a little tired, and he shrugged back at his friend. “I was thinking maybe the guest room.”

Mark blinked owlishly at him.

“What?”

“Well, alright–” Jack put up his hands to placate the other man, smiling sheepishly. “I know that’s kind of me _assuming_ that Schneep and Chase won’t mind bunkin’ together. If they don’t wanna, then one of ‘em can take the couch.”

“One of them–” Mark shook his head slowly, looking baffled and confused. “No, I meant – Jack. What if _more_ show up? Two of your dopplegangärs are sitting on your living room couch, and you’re not even–” He dragged a hand over his face, knocking his glasses ever-so-slightly askew. “Who knows when more might pop into existence. I appreciate your confidence and optimism, but we’re not even _remotely_ ready for that.”

Jack furrowed his brow, seriously considering what Mark was saying. They couldn’t really do anything right now – it was the middle of the night, after all – but Mark was right. They had no idea when Jackie or Marvin might show up, or even JJ.

"...you're right,” Jack agreed, nodding and running a hand through his hair. He looked serious. “You’re absolutely right. We need more food."

"....wait, what?”

"And maybe an air mattress, so nobody has to sleep on the floor,” he added.

Ignoring Mark’s gobsmacked expression, Jack slipped past him and back the way they had come, calling out toward the living room so he could be heard.

“Hey Chase!” He winced slightly against the flare of pain in his throat, but went on. “Or Schneep. Whoever. Remind me tomorrow that we need to go to the store, yeah? I don’t want us ta starve just because we have more mouths to feed and not enough snacks.”

“You’re planning on purchasing _real_ food too, I hope?” Henrik countered from where he had been perusing the bookshelf. “Ve cannot possibly survive on junk food alone, mein friend.”

“Yeah, o’ course!” Jack nodded, coming into view. He smirked. “Lemme know what you guys want, and Mark an’ I can go shopping tomorrow. Maybe sort out a meal plan, I dunno. I’m too tired to make choices right now, and anyway–”

“Jack, that’s not what I was talking about!” Mark cut him off, grabbing the Irishman’s shoulder and turning him around. “I meant – what if we get some _surprise visitors_ that aren’t so friendly? What then? We got _lucky_ this time, man. What if–”

“Mark.”

Mark trailed off, and it was then that he noticed just how exhausted and worn out Jack looked. He had dark shadows under his eyes to match Mark’s, and his hair was probably just as unruly as his own. Jack was bruised and beaten and tired as hell, but all the while he had still been managing to find the time to smile.

Just like now.

Jack was smiling, weak but genuine, and he dropped his hands on Mark’s shoulders.

“I know. I know, we’re up against some scary shit right now, and I _know_ that we don’t have any sort of a plan yet. But it’s two in the fuckin’ morning and we’re all gonna be able to think better after we get some sleep. Alright? Anti’s not comin’ back tonight. Tim’s awake, he’s fine. Sam is fine. With Chase and Henrik, we’ve got ‘em outnumbered right now. Nobody died tonight, and the worst I got was some badass bruises.” Mark made a face, a sort of a cross between a smile and a wince. “There’s no point worryin’ over “What If’s” and “If Only’s” right now, yeah?” Mark huffed out a breath and Jack raised his eyebrows. “ _Yeah?_ ”

“Yeah, alright, _yes,_ ” Mark conceded, chuckling and rolling his eyes, the full weight of his exhaustion finally catching up with him. “Okay.”

“That’s better!” Jack clapped him on the shoulders and stepped away, strolling over to where Sam was just beginning to doze off next to Chase on the couch. “Gotta keep up that Positive Mental Attitude! That good ol’ PMA!”

Chase was grinning now, and Henrik chuckled softly from across the room.

“PM-fuckin-A!” Chase agreed, shooting matching finger guns at Jack, who snickered a little as he leaned over to scoop up a very sleepy Sam.

“I should tell you,” Henrik pushed away from the bookshelf. “Your whole ‘Positive Mental Attitude’ movement...it really does wonders. Medically speaking, it does so much to help improve mental help...and beyond zat, it is part of vhat has kept us all togezer und strong zese past few months. It is still so new, but I encourage you to keep it going through ze rest of ze year. Vell done, Jack.”

“Ah, hell, I wasn’t tryin’ to make it into anythin’ big.” Jack smiled sheepishly.

“I’m vell avare,” Henrik chuckled. “But it _is_ somesing big, and many people are becoming appreciative of it. Keep it up.” He reached out and patted Jack twice on the shoulder.

It was a little odd, Jack mused, to be receiving praise from somebody who was, essentially, himself – did this count as a self-confidence boost? – but hearing that vote of confidence warmed his heart all the same.

 

“…so…” Mark fetched Tim up from the couch too, glancing between the almost-creepily-identical egos. “...you two don’t mind sharing a bed, do you?”

“Ohhh, kinky~”

“Chase, I _svear_ to _Gott_ –!”

 

 

The familiar sound of the Skype dial tone filled the room, sunlight filtering in between the shades and casting odd, striped shadows across Jack’s laptop keyboard. Normally, he would be using his regular computer for this, but the room still gave him the creeps. So...laptop it was.

Other quiet sounds filtered through the space: a quiet, rhythmic squeaking of a sneaker against linoleum, Jack’s knee bouncing rapidly in his frazzled state of nervousness...and the almost imperceptible click-clacking of the zipper toggle that he hadn’t stopped fidgeting with since he sat down. Jack fussed with his hair for the umpteenth time, running his fingers through the strands in a nervous fashion, and Sam automatically plopped into his lap and made little squeaking sounds of concern and affection. Jack chuckled and let his hand fall, palm-up, into his lap. Sam was quick to hop onto it...and Jack forced himself to stop bouncing his knee. It lasted for about five seconds before he was at it again.

Mark bumped shoulders with him then, the American seated right beside him at the kitchen table, smiling reassuringly and trying to pretend he wasn’t tense himself.

“C’mon, calm down. You’ve been fidgeting for the past ten minutes.”

“Can’t help it,” Jack shrugged, chuckling weakly, his voice just barely beginning to recover from the night before. “...sorry.”

All the while, the Skype dial tone kept pinging away in the background.

This wasn’t going to be an easy conversation.

One of the people on the other end of the call finally answered, his image coming to life on the screen.

“Hey guys!”

“Matt,” Jack grinned, waving a little with his free hand. “Thanks for makin’ time to talk. I know it’s super late on your end.”

Eleven AM here in Brighton. Three in the morning over in California. ‘Super late’ was an understatement.

“Nah, it’s fine,” Matt shrugged it off with a tired smile. “I’ve been up late almost every night this week anyway. Little Ollie’s a night owl and Steph’s still exhausted, so I’ve kind of taken up Parent Duty for the time being. We only got home from the hospital yesterday.”

“Oh, shit, that’s right!” Mark brightened at the mention of the newest addition to the Patrick family, and Jack couldn’t help but smile along with him. “I haven’t even seen pictures yet! Is he adorable? Tell me he’s adorable.”

“He’s handsome, just like his old man,” Matt joked, posing semi-dramatically for the camera and stroking his chin.

The group fell into light laughter, and some of Jack’s stress fell away. Just a little.

“I’d expect nothin’ less,” he replied with a grin. “We’d better see pictures ‘fore we’re done talkin’.”

“I promise.” Matt’s smile was nothing but genuine as he reached out for something off-screen, pulling an unopened bottle of Diet Coke into view. He _click_ ’d it open and gulped it down, clearly keeping himself awake solely via the carbonated caffeine concoction in the bottle.

“We might wait a few minutes before we start gettin’ into the serious shit,” Jack carried on, scratching the back of his head with the hand that wasn’t holding Sam. “We’re waitin’ on Robin and Amy to join us, and I don’t wanna go over anythin’ more ‘n once if I can help it.”

“Yeah, of course,” Matt agreed, screwing the lid back onto his Diet Coke. He quirked an eyebrow. “Can I at least get _some_ idea as to what the ‘serious shit’ is gonna be? Or–”

“Serious Shit™,” Mark corrected with a nod and a pointed look.

“Yeah, that,” Jack amended, snickering. “Serious Shit™.”

“Serious shit T-M?” Matt smirked, humor alighting his tired eyes. “The trademark is verbal?”

“Fuck yeah it is!” Mark insisted. “Why wouldn’t it be?!”

He said it in a voice that was falsely astonished and offended, as though suggesting otherwise was blasphemous.

“You’re right,” Matt grinned, eyes sparkling with mirth, barely restraining a laugh. “You’re absolutely right. It has to be verbal. It wouldn’t be official enough otherwise.”

“Damn right I’m right.”

“There’s–” Jack snorted out a half-laugh, barely noticing when Sam hovered up to sit on his shoulder, waving his little tail at Matt in greeting. Matt’s grin widened and he waved back, eager to say hello to the little eyeball. “–there’s a story behind it. Sort ‘f an inside joke, but not really.”

“Jack! Jack, you’re out of fuckin’ Dorito’s, bro,” Chase’s voice called in from the other room.

Jack could hear him getting closer, and he tensed, Mark going a little wide-eyed beside him. They exchanged a look. There was no time to turn the laptop away before Chase came strolling into view in the kitchen. He was wearing only one of Jack’s t-shirts - an old one with a faded band logo on the front - and his boxers, ruffling his faded green hair with one hand as he strolled into the kitchen. Chase had _clearly_ woken up fairly recently, or if not, then at the very least he hadn’t opted to leave his bed until now.

“Can we put it on the shopping list? Dorito’s are important as shit, dude.”

Chase came to a slow stop behind the pair, and when he caught sight of the Skype call, he grinned. He strolled over and leaned forward to get into the video frame, propping his elbows on the back of Jack and Mark’s chairs and smiling between their tense faces, oblivious to it all.

“Sup bro! You’re MatPat, yeah?”

Matt had gone very still, his eyes wide as saucers and his mouth hanging open in a search for words that, Jack had a feeling, would never come. His expression was familiar to the Irishman...in that it was very, very similar to the one he had worn when he had accidentally seen Sam for the first time.

“W-What–”

Jack sighed wearily and ran a hand through his hair, slouching back in his seat.

“Chase,” he mumbled, almost apologetically for Matt’s sake, “this is Matt. Matt...this is...part of that ‘Serious Shit’ we need to talk about.”

Matt dropped his Diet Coke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally! MatPat!
> 
> I'm rather excited to get into the conversation they'll have in that call. :3c Since it hasn't been touched on yet, we'll get into Henrik and Chase's side of how this whole "Belief" thing really works...plus we'll see Robin's input, Matt's thoughts, and something that's been bothering Mark about this since the night before. Plus Amy's gonna be more than a little concerned with an entire ocean separating her and her boyf...
> 
> And Chase and Henrik also brought up the "Kill Jacksepticeye" chaos which...is clearly a very, very different experience when you're not just acting it out for a video. This isn't the last time it will be discussed either, nor will Jack forget it so easily. There's guilt there that hasn't been addressed yet.
> 
> (And if you're very very good, perhaps I'll try and toss in some Dark-Ego interactions since those have been few and far between up until this point...we'll see. ;3)
> 
> Check out the #SamLives Tumblr: https://sam-lives-story.tumblr.com/


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